An adjunct to the juniper-ridge.info website, in my continued qwest to learn more about the multi-million dollar project at Juniper Ridge on the north side of Bend, Oregon. This 1500 acres of land was sold to the City of Bend by Deschutes County for $1. It was sold to the public as a place for industry and education, but seems to be morphing into something more like a planned community of mostly housing and retail. This is a self-supported project.

Friday, October 24, 2008

UPDATE: Suterra Sale--Site Pics, Cali Spraying Controversy

Went out to the worksite earlier today and I am amazed at how far along Suterra is on site preparation. There were approximately 20 pieces of heavy equipment breaking rock and moving rock and dirt. If you go out to the new Les Schwab building at the east of Cooley and turn north at the double roundabout, the Suterra site is about 800 yards north. Here are a couple pics:

There was so much going on I didn't want to get too close. I'll try again this weekend.

According to the Sale Agreement, Suterra has had site access since Oct. 4th in anticipation of an agreement. They want to be in the facility next summer-fall from what I've read.

On another Suterra note, Buster has flipped into full research mode on Suterra spraying their Checkmate products from the air in the Bay Area. The stated purpose is to control the Light Brown Apple Moth. There is far more controversy than anyone knows about, including lawsuits, injunctions, city resolutions, state and federal intervention, secret hazardous ingredients, sealing of court records, etc. See the comments at BB2's last post for a whole lot more. It's rather disturbing.

There are plenty of very unhappy folks in the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas over this matter. They've even set up several dedicated websites:http://www.lbamspray.com/http://www.stopthespray.org/

I really hope Suterra is a good neighbor to us here in Bend. This kind of stuff is where public process really needs to be proactive. I will further such efforts after the election, so as not to inadvertently help even more pro-development candidates get elected. Candidates like Tom Greene, Don Leonard. Kathie Eckman, and Jeff Eager.

If you have had it up to here with the Council, please consider writing me--Bruce Ewert--in for Position 3. I know I'll get at least one vote :) And I will be in a position to be even more proactive about ending the abuse of Executive Sessions.

There was a ton of activity around the Les Schwab building as well, including a couple of moving trucks that look to be bringing in office equipment. They look really close to moving in. I'll try to get pics soon, without all the trucks and other equipment.

Juniper Ridge is moving forward fast. Here's to keeping it much more public and making sure it doesn't bankrupt the City.

Bruce, here is an interesting back-story on the how powerful the Resnicks are, this author a bee keeper in CALI, seems to think they're the most powerful couple in the State of Cali.

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Taking on the ResnicksPosted December 1, 2006

By Joe Traynor

An Introduction to the owners of Paramount Citrus 12/12/06

(this article appeared in a slightly different form in the October BEE CULTURE)

A Brief HistoryIn late April, this year, just after most beekeepers had placed bees on long-held citrus locations in the San Joaquin Valley, a number of beekeepers received a startling letter from Paramount Citrus’ in-house attorney stating that “Paramount hereby demands that you immediately remove your bee hives a minimum of two (2) miles away from Paramount’s Property” and threatening legal action if this demand was not met. Honey bees can contribute to seediness in certain varieties of mandarins by transferring pollen from certain other varieties; seeds greatly reduce the market value of these mandarin varieties.

If beekeepers are held liable for their bees trespassing on another person’s property, no bee operation in the U.S. is secure. As one beekeeper put it “we’re going to war”. Past cases of trespassing bees have been decided in favor of beekeepers but never have beekeepers been pitted against as formidable an opponent as Paramount Citrus and its billionaire owner, Stewart Resnick.

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Paramount Citrus is a subsidiary of the giant, Los Angeles based Roll International Corporation, privately owned by Stewart and Lynda Resnick. Knowledge of one’s opponent helps in preparing for war; it also helps if one can demonize the enemy. Although the Resnicks are publicity shy (unless they are promoting their own products) ample information on them is available on the internet. Unlike recent disgraced heads of empires, one searches in vain for any sign of malfeasance or impropriety on the part of the Resnicks. In fact, the more one learns about the Resnicks, the more one comes away with a grudging respect for what they have accomplished - they are the quintessential American success story. Mr. and Mrs. Resnick have earned the sobriquet “Power Couple” and are probably the most powerful couple in California.

Stewart Resnick, 67, put his way through UCLA law school by operating a janitor service. Lynda Resnick, 61, possesses striking good looks but dubbing her a trophy wife would be demeaning to both her and her husband. Mrs. Resnick is a highly intelligent and energetic woman and a co-equal partner with her husband. She started her own ad agency at 19 and has been listed as one of Working Woman’s top 50 business owners for six consecutive years and, in 2003, was named California’s Person of the Year. Together, the Resnicks make a formidable team.

The Resnicks live in a $17 million Beverly Hills mansion decorated with fine art work. They serve on the boards of 3 major museums: LA County Museum of Art (LACMA), New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art. As philanthropists, the Resnicks have been more than generous, donating $25 million to LACMA and $15 million to UCLA’s Medical Hospital. They have made numerous other donations, including many political candidates, almost exclusively Democrats. As members of Hollywood’s A-list, the Resnicks have the requisite second home in Aspen, Colorado and are well connected in Hollywood. Lynda Resnick’s father produced horror films, including the cult classic The Blob (co-starring screen neophyte Steve McQueen). Their pomegranate juice, POM Wonderful, is a staple at the major annual Oscar parties and is consumed by a number of Hollywood notables.

Following are the seven major companies of the Resnick Empire:

TelefloraIn 1980, the Resnicks purchased Teleflora and by pairing flowers with gifts, turned the company into the world’s largest flower seller.

Franklin MintIn 1984, the Resnicks purchased the Franklin Mint for $187 million and, as with Teleflora, infused the company with new energy, introducing 1500 new items including $100 Rolls Royce replicas and $4800 Faberge-type eggs. An annual advertising budget of $100 million was the engine that drove the Franklin Mint to record sales. You may remember the full-page ads in your newspaper’s Sunday supplement magazine that week after week offered objects of art suitable for collectors or for family heirlooms. These Franklin Mint ads are textbook examples of the power of advertising to create a burning desire in people to purchase something they really don’t need and weren’t even aware they wanted. Paying $50 to $100 for athletic shoes is another example of the susceptibility of many Americans to advertising. Same for designer jeans, off-road vehicles that never go off road and bottled water. The pharmaceutical industry has gotten into the game, spending billions on advertising and causing millions of Americans to consume billions of high-priced pills that are of dubious value in many cases and that can be harmful in some cases.

When one read the Franklin Mint ads (the past tense is used here because the Franklin Mint currently has a very low profile in the collectibles market) one couldn’t help but admire the prose and the passion that infused them. For many, it would require considerable self-control to refrain from picking up the phone and ordering a $139 must-have, limited edition collectible. For others, the question arises “who buys this stuff?” The answer: enough people to justify spending $100 million a year on advertising.

In two separate Franklin Mint cases, with two different outcomes, the Resnicks showed that they are not averse to litigation. In 2002, the Franklin Mint won approximately $25 million in punitive damages from the Princess Diana fund. The Fund had sued the Franklin Mint for using Diana’s image on a collectible. The Resnicks counter sued and won, then magnanimously donated their winnings to charities, including Princess Diana’s favorite charities. The legal fees for each side in this dispute totaled in the millions of dollars. In a rare legal defeat for the Resnicks, Tiger Woods won a substantial sum from the Franklin Mint who had issued, without Mr. Woods’ permission, a medallion commerating Woods’ 1996 Master’s championship. Woods’ papers referred to Franklin Mint goods as “low level merchandise of the type which Tiger Woods does not wish to associate himself.”

The Resnicks recently entered into an agreement to sell the Franklin Mint. Perhaps the collectibles market became saturated, or perhaps the Resnicks tired of fielding questions from guests at their Beverly Hills mansion as to what the porcelain replica of the Star Trek crew was doing next to the Matisse original.

Paramount Farming Co.The Resnicks started Paramount Farming in the 1980s, leveraging $ from cash cows Franklin Mint and Teleflora to purchase thousands of acres of almond and pistachio orchards. Their timing was impeccable. Oil and insurance companies with large agricultural holdings wanted to get out of ag since commodity prices were depressed and the future was cloudy. These cash-rich companies didn’t haggle about price and the Resnicks were able to buy quality orchards at bargain basement prices. Paramount now farms about 30,000 acres of almonds, 25,000 acres of pistachios and 6,000 acres of pomegranates in the southern San Joaquin Valley (mainly Kern County).

Nut prices rebounded in the 1990s and both prices and nut yields have been excellent in recent years. Almonds and pistachios are both bright spots in an ailing agriculture economy that suffers from global competition. Almonds require a “Mediterranean Climate” found in few places in the world. The six to eight years it takes for pistachios to bear a crop has discouraged many from planting them; also, pistachios from major producer, Iran, are prohibited from being sold in the U.S. Getting into almonds and pistachios was a gutsy move for the Resnicks but one that has paid off big time. Paramount Farming recently purchased 15,000 acres of row-crop land in Madera county from Newhall Land Co., land that will undoubtedly be planted to almonds, pistachios and pomegranates. Paramount Farming has replaced the Franklin Mint as the jewel of the Roll Corporation’s holdings.

Paramount CitrusThe Resnicks purchased Paramount Citrus in the 1980s. They own 20,000 acres of their own citrus and farm another 10,000 acres through their subsidiary S&J Farm Management. Paramount Citrus is the largest citrus grower in California and supplies 20% of Sunkist’s citrus. Citrus has not been nearly as profitable as almonds or pistachios and to improve Paramount Citrus’ bottom line, the Resnicks decided to plant the popular new seedless varieties that command a premium price in the market. It was this decision that led to the current standoff with beekeepers.

SuterraParamount Farming cooperated with UC researchers in testing pheromones that disrupted the mating of navel orange worms, a major pest of almonds. To continually dispense a fixed amount of pheromone to the orchard, puffer dispensers were used. Paramount Farming purchased the technology and formed an ancillary company, Suterra, to sell this technology to others. Suterra products could be useful to beekeepers in wax moth control and possibly in the control of other honey bee pests. CheckMate is the brand name of one of Suttera’s products.

POM WonderfulAs with Suterra, pomegranates found the Resnicks rather than vice versa. One of the large almond-pistachio holdings they purchased also had 100 acres of pomegranates. Paramount planned to replant the pomegranates with almonds but the pomegranates made money the first year, then the next and Paramount Farming now has 6,000 acres of a crop that was heretofore considered a very minor crop. Lynda Resnick researched the health benefits of pomegranates, was intrigued by what she found and hired Nobel Laureate Dr. Louis Ignarro to conduct further studies. The Resnicks have spent $10 million on scientific studies on the health benefits of pomegranates (and pomegranate juice) with another $8 million earmarked for future research.Paramount’s choicest pomegranates go to the fresh market, the remainder for juice - and extracting juice from pomegranates is a formidable undertaking. Lynda Resnick has created, from scratch, a solid market for a brand new product, one that will improve the health of those that consume it. This is a considerable achievement and on that the Resnicks are justifiably proud of. The surprising success of POM Wonderful has spawned numerous copy-cat producers of pomegranate juice, riding on the coat tails of the Resnicks’ pioneering efforts. Note to Honey Board: Hire Mrs. Resnick to map out a marketing plan for honey.

Fiji WaterIn December of 2004, the Resnicks entered the bottled water business by purchasing Fiji Water (for either $50 million or $150 million depending on the source). The purchase was probably a sound business investment since the original owners spent $48 million to build an on-site bottling plant (in Fiji) in 1995 and annual sales were about $25 million (since increased by 67% over the past year with the application of the Resnicks’ marketing savvy). With this purchase, however, the Resnicks have regressed to their Franklin Mint days, selling people something they don’t need (the test: would citizens of a third-world country buy your product?). Shipping water from Fiji to the U.S. in disposable plastic bottles makes no sense to confirmed environmentalists. Here’s a conundrum: why are so many Prius-driving Hollywood Democrats also enthusiastic consumers of Fiji Water?

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Owning any one of the many companies under the Roll Corporation banner would justify a cover story in a national magazine. For one couple to own all of them is truly mind-boggling. When people rise as high as the Resnicks, they become tempting targets for those that would denigrate their achievements, including those that have not accomplished in their lives a tiny fraction of what the Resnicks have accomplished. The Resnicks could answer their critics by quoting Theodore Roosevelt: “The man that really counts in the world is the doer, not the mere critic.” The Resnicks saga is a remarkable and uniquely American success story.

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As with the Franklin Mint, both Paramount Farming and Paramount Citrus have gotten involved in legal disputes. Paramount Farming is currently attempting to extract itself from the Pistachio Commission, an organization of growers that is assessed according to acreage with a portion of the assessments going to generic advertising. The Resnicks feel their assessment dollars can be better spent advertising their own pistachios (currently sold under the Sunkist label) and are using free speech statutes to back their case. Paramount Citrus is trying to back out of Sunkist on related grounds. In both cases, it would be easy, but unfair, to slap the “does not play well with others” label on the Resnicks but who can blame them for their actions? With their track record of marketing successes one can only imagine the frustration endured by the Resnicks at having little or no control over the marketing of their health-giving oranges and pistachios.

Some beekeepers have called for a boycott of Paramount almond orchards and at least two beekeepers involved in the current dispute have told Paramount that they won’t deliver almond bees in 2007; both likely have alternative almond locations. Unfortunately, an effective boycott of Paramount’s almond orchards is dead in the water because there are plenty of beekeepers out there who would be happy to service Paramount’s almond acreage and who have no suitable almond alternatives. Beekeepers who have come to depend on an annual almond pollination check won’t jeopardize that check in service of a higher principle; who can blame them?

And where does Paramount Farming, sister company of Paramount Citrus stand in this matter? On the sidelines. Paramount Farming is sympathetic to the beekeeper position and has even apologized for the confrontational tone of Paramount Citrus, however the final say in this matter belongs to Stewart Resnick and Mr. Resnick has apparently made up his mind that the bees must go. Just as no one was able to explain to President Bush the ramifications of invading Iraq, no one can explain the ramifications of his bee policy to Stewart Resnick. At this time, it appears that negotiations will be unsuccessful and that litigation is inevitable. If such be the case, beekeepers are united in their stand - “Bring it on!”

The New King (and Queen) of CaliforniaJim Boswell, the largest cotton grower in California (and the world) was labeled The King of California in an excellent 2003 book of the same name by Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman. With California’s cotton acreage half of what it was ten years ago (much of it converted to almonds) Stewart Resnick can justifiably lay claim to the title King of California or, more accurately, Resnick, with his wife Lynda, have earned the title The King and Queen of California.

There are some striking parallels between Jim Boswell and Stewart Resnick: both live in palatial homes in the Los Angeles area. At one time Boswell was the largest single renter of bees in California (and the world) using 2+ colonies per acre on thousands of acres of alfalfa seed (an excellent rotation crop with cotton). The Resnicks are now the largest renter of bees in the world on their vast almond holdings. Both Boswell and Resnick have come under fire for using state and federal water on their holdings - water that would command a much higher price on the open market. Both have in-house attorneys and neither is averse to litigation. Both have succumbed to the temptation common to many who have built empires: to re-write the Golden Rule as The Man with the Gold Makes the Rules. Both are stubborn, which can be either a fault or a virtue depending on the circumstances.

In the 1980s, Boswell, convinced his rules applied, was on the losing end of a lawsuit that could serve as a cautionary tale for Resnick on the perils of hubris. Boswell sued a group of farmers claiming their anti-Boswell ads on a contentious water issue were libelous. The farmers counter-sued on free-speech grounds and eventually won $3 million in compensatory damages and an additional $8 million in punitive damages. Punitive damages - that the defendant knowingly and maliciously caused harm - are difficult to prove, but some beekeepers feel a case can be made against Paramount Citrus. The dollar amount of punitive damages is based on the financial status of the payer; they are assessed high enough so that they inflict enough financial pain on the defendant to discourage future similar action by either the defendant or anyone else. Winning punitive damages against Paramount Citrus is a distinct long shot, but would represent a windfall for beekeepers if it did happen.

In what could serve as an example of unchecked hubris, Paramount Citrus’ attorney is threatening beekeepers with punitive damages if their bees are not removed. When one owns a legal pit bull, it must be tempting to unchain it from time to time to keep it in fighting trim.

Unsolicited Advice for the Resnicks

1. Get in the honey business. The honey business is badly in need of someone with your proven marketing wizardry. Do for honey what you have done for pomegranates. You will become a hero to beekeepers.

2. On your 15,000 acre Madera holdings, consider planting crops such as safflower and canola; such crops could be cash crops for you and feed locations (esp. in late summer and fall) for honey bees. Such plantings could serve as cost-effective alternatives to moving bees to North Dakota for the summer. Investigate other honey-pollen plants for feedlot beekeeping.

3. Secure the copyright to the song The Farmer and the Cowboy Should be Friends (from the musical Oklahoma!). Hire a lyricist to rewrite the lyrics, substituting beekeeper for cowboy. Have the song played whenever a can of almonds (or the front door at corporate headquarters) is opened.

4. Have the Franklin Mint fire up the furnaces in Philadelphia to produce a limited edition (limited to the number people purchase) of a bronze statue of a beekeeper with the inscription Honey Bees - The Backbone of Agriculture. Place a life-sized replica of the statue in front of Paramount Farming’s headquarters.

ConclusionIf the current dispute goes to litigation, the only sure winners will be the attorneys. The best thing that beekeepers have going for them is that the Resnicks are good people. When good people are well informed, they usually make good decisions.

Congressman Sam Farr (D-Carmel) has submitted a petition to the USDA for reclassifying the Light Brown Apple Moth to a minor pest status. He has also stated that he hopes his Agricultural Appropriations Committee will hold hearings with the USDA answering questions about making errors and correcting them. A copy of the petition is available on request.

CASS (California Alliance to Stop the Spray)Oct. 22, 2008

Press release

Contact: Dick André, Phone 831-818-5685

Farr wants hearing on LBAM classification

Congressman Sam Farr (D-Carmel) at a Town Hall Meeting inSalinas Wed. night, affirmed his hope that his Agricultural Appropriations Committee will have a hearing with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) reclassification.

Farr has already submitted a 97 page petition to the US Department of Agriculture arguing to lower the classification of the LBAM from Class A (voracious pest) to Class C (minor pest).

“I am very excited about putting the USDA on the spot,” Farr had commented earlier. “I hope that we (the Appropriations Committee) can have a hearing on it.”

The USDA gets all of its money from the appropriations committee, so USDA “has to be responsive to our questions.” In his letter submitting the petition, Farr wrote, “I urge the Department to make a determination of the merits of the petition on the basis of sound science and proceed accordingly as soon as feasible.”

The petition challenges the quality of the science used by USDA in listing the moth class A and establishing trade quarantines. “The Plant Protection Act (PL 106-224:2000) . . . requires that decisions affecting trade be based on sound science.” the petition states.

In California, no damage from the moth has been found. Wherever the moth exists in the world, damage is not an issue, the petition reports. “The totality of published scientific literature suggests LBAM is at worst an episodically minor pest . . ..”

Along with three others, Roy Upton, LBAM Liaison for Citizens for Health, prepared the petition, which cites 182 sources, six from USDA and California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) publications or statements.

Supporting letters with the petition are from Professors James R. Carey and Frank G. Zalom, internationally recognized University of California, Davis, entomologists, and Doctor Derrell Chambers and Doctor Hilary Lorraine, retired US agriculture officials.

“The current classification of LBAM is based on out-of-date information, incomplete understanding of LBAM biology, and does not reflect the true potential agricultural impact of LBAM on agriculture within the context of modern practices,” wrote Chambers and Lorraine.

The petition details all of the points made by Chambers and Lorraine.

Regarding classification and the associated quarantine on California produce, the petition says USDA relied on pre-1998 scientific and agricultural literature, ignoring one New Zealand scientist who changed a previous unsupported opinion that LBAM was a problem by reporting that LBAM “. . . is neither constant or endemic, nor characterized by sporadic plague-like outbursts.”

The petition also points out that some pests are classified A but without a quarantine. The USDA’s own figures show that most costs associated with LBAM in Australia and New Zealand are caused by requirements to meet the US zero-tolerance for LBAM, not for controlling LBAM.

Can the Mexico and New Zealand quarantines be lifted? Both governments have indicated that a change in US policy will be the main impetus needed for them to “harmonize” their policies. The discoverer of the first LBAM found in California in 2006, retired entomologist Jerry Powell, said, “. . . it doesn’t seem to me there’s much point to quarantining things . . ..”

Regarding LBAM biology, the petition recounts numerous errors, including the fact that USDA originally thought LBAM could not survive in coastal California, its only known home in the US.

The most frightening error was the projection of LBAM offspring provided by CDFA in 2007. It assumed that every egg laid by an LBAM would survive to maturity, increasing the California population to a range of 6.7 million to 7.8 trillion in a year.

In fact, the LBAM population has remained relatively stable. A main reason is predators. USDA and CDFA assumed no native predators would control LBAM. The petition lists 65 US LBAM predators, including six Trichogramma wasp species, a type of wasp that CDFA proposed importing.Regarding modern agricultural practices, if LBAM were a threat, the petition offers this: “The success of New Zealand agriculture and horticulture professionals in controlling LBAM and other leafrollers using IPM (integrated pest management) techniques and few or no chemical applications is a model of best IPM practices that can readily be adopted in California.”

The public is encouraged to attend a discussion regarding aerial pesticide spraying that will take place Monday at 7 p.m. at the Live Oak Grange, 1900 17th Ave. The meeting is free, but donations are accepted.

Ben Price of the Community’s Environmental Legal Defense Fund of Pennsylvania and Shannon Biggs of Global Exchange will lead a discussion about a proposed Santa Cruz city ordinance that says the community has the right to decide to protect one’s health and safety where they live.

If passed, some of what the ordinance would do is ban corporations from using large amounts of pesticides in the Santa Cruz city limits. It would also ban people and government agencies from using corporations to apply bulk quantities of pesticides in the city limits.

The event is hosted by the Santa Cruz branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the California Alliance to Stop the Spray.

September 9, 2008 marked the anniversary of the beginning of repeated spraying of pesticides over Monterey and Santa Cruz, as part of the Light Brown Apple Moth Eradication Program. The U.S. and California Departments of Agriculture want us to believe that the tiny, exotic LBAM is a threat to our food supply and ecology, even though it’s done no actual damage to crops nor forests, and there’s no evidence that it ever will. We are told their pesticides are safe and environmentally friendly, but hundreds of people have been injured already, and pets, and hundred of birds have died.

Please take a moment to remember those injured by this ongoing program, both by the aerial apray and other toxic methods, and by pesticides in general, and join us for a commemoration across regional boundaries, with music and sharing. Simultaneous gatherings are scheduled in Berkeley, Santa Cruz and San Rafael.

December 2003Page 2Public Citizenis a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization founded by Ralph Nader in 1971 torepresent consumer interests in Congress, the executive branch and the courts. We fight for openness and democraticaccountability in government, for the right of consumers to seek redress in the courts; for clean, safe and sustainable energysources; for social and economic justice in trade policies; for strong health, safety and environmental protections; and for safe,effective and affordable prescription drugs and health care. We have six divisions and two state offices.The California OfficeOur campaigns protect the basics for life: food, water and democracy. We fight for safe and sustainableagriculture that provides locally-grown and nutritious food produced in a humane fashion. We advocate for democratic controland protection of public water resources in the face of international corporate strategies to privatize their ownership anddistribution. And we continue to highlight how corporate-driven trade policy undermines environmental regulations, labor laws,and the democratic process.Public Citizen is campaigning to protect universal access to safe and affordable drinking water by keeping it in public hands.Public Citizen does not believe that citizens benefit from privatization of their water and wastewater systems because the saleof public works to private companies can foster corruption and result in higher rates, inadequate customer service and a loss oflocal control and accountability.California Office1615 Broadway, Ninth FloorOakland, CA 94612phone 510.663.0888 fax 510.663.8569www.citizen.org/californiajgibler@citizen.orgAcknowledgmentsThis report was researched and written by John Gibler. Research assistance by Kevin Chapin and LoganHarris. The report was edited by Juliette Beck, Hugh Jackson, Erica Hartman, and John Gibler. The author would like to thankCarolee Kreiger, Michael Jackson, and Tim Stroshane for commenting on earlier drafts.PhotographyMichael Bialecki—cover, pp. 2, 9 ,14, 15, 21, 22. John Gibler—pp. 1, 12, 16. Tom Price—p. 17. Richard Kadrey—p. 26.DesignNicola Ginzler DesignThis document is printedwith soy inks on paper containing xx percent post-consumer waste.Page 3Water Heist1OVER THE PAST DECADE, a handful of the largestagribusiness and development corporations in the countryhave been rewriting California water policy in secret meetingsto quench their thirst for unabated expansion and privatizethe state’s water supply. Displaying total disregard for theCalifornia State Constitution, representative democracy,and the environmental and social impacts of their actions,these players seek to “game”public water projects—much asEnron “gamed” energy deregulation. Their goal is to siphonas much of California’s public water as possible to theircorporate farms and “master-planned” cities in the desertwhile profiting from insider water sales.In California state law,as laid out in the Constitution and theWater Code,water is a public good,held in trust by the state toensure the greatest benefit to the public.In Water Heist: HowCorporations Are Cashing In On California’s Water we showhow the public trust has been breached by an entrenchedwater plutocracy. The corporate interests that pervade thewater districts that call the shots throughout the state aresetting up insider water trading systems to facilitate the easewith which water flows to money. With direct corporatecontrol over vital public water infrastructure—especiallymassive public water storage facilities—environmentalprotection and justice, urban renewal and smart growth facea desiccated future where profit rather than need dictates thedestiny of California’s water.The abuses continue largely because they occur in closedmeetings in hidden forms of government. Public Citizenaims to help cast the light of public scrutiny on the waterdeals taking place using the state’s public water deliverysystem so that not just the CEOs of California have a voicein determining how our water is managed.The water plutocracy includes some of the largest privateagribusiness and development corporations in the country,who have created obscure and unaccountable water districtsthat act like “hidden government.”California’s Great Central Valley receives between one and ten inches of rain a year. The diverted rivers sent south to be used as irrigation waterprovide the Midas touch that transforms the desert into the richest agricultural region in the world.Executive SummaryCalifornia’s Central Valley is one of the largest contiguous swaths of land on earth to have been socompletely altered by human activity. Lake beds and wetlands have been drained and planted with cottonand almonds, rivers dammed and diverted over hundreds of miles from their sources, the air filled withsuch quantities of dust and pesticides as to become the most polluted in the country, and the dry semi-desert floor turned into the most productive agricultural region in the world. Now, after a century of suchcosmetology, the Valley is about to get yet another makeover from a boom crop: sprawl.Page 42Water HeistWater Heist3Usurping Democracy: The MontereyAmendmentsIn 1994, the largest contractors with the California StateWater Project (SWP)—the state’s largest water deliverysystem—called the Department of Water Resources(DWR) into a closed meeting. The agreements that theSWP contractors and the state reached in that meetingled to a document known as the Monterey Amendments,named after the city where the meetings took place. These“amendments” to the SWP contracts included denying thatthe SWP delivers half of what the contractors say it doesand effectively deregulating the SWP so that the contractorscan sell contracts for precisely the half of the water thatdoesn’t exist. Sound confusing? It is. Welcome to the worldof “paper water.”In the same Monterey meetings, the state also agreed to giveaway an underground water storage facility that DWR spent$74 million purchasing and developing.State Giveaway of Essential Public Asset:The Kern Water BankThe Kern Water Bank is an underground water storagefacility—the largest of its kind—situated at the southerntip of the Great Central Valley, the region where thestate delivers 80 percent of its surface water to industrialagriculture. The water bank is connected to the publiccanals and aqueducts that pipe water in from the northern,central and southern Sierra Nevada mountain range. Thewater bank can store about 1 million acre-feet of water andpump out over 200,000 acre-feet a year, according to officialproject descriptions.The Kern Water Bank is an integral part of California’spublic water delivery system. It could store large amountsof water for times of drought or natural disasters such asfires or earthquakes. It could also provide a handful ofprivate corporations with the keys to a virtual “switchyard”for controlling water deals between agribusinesses and realestate developers.In 1994,DWR gave the Kern Water Bank to the Kern CountyWater Agency, which immediately signed it over to theKern Water Bank Authority, a supposedly public entitycomprised of a collection of water districts and oneprivate company. The private company involved is a “papercompany” with no listed telephone number or address:Westside Mutual Water Company. Westside is ownedby perhaps the largest agribusiness in the United States:Paramount Farming Company.Who’s Behind the Kern Water Bank?Roll International Corporation andParamount Farming CompanyRoll International Corporation—a Los Angeles-basedholding company—is one of the largest privately ownedcompanies in the world, and everything that Roll ownsclaims to be the biggest at what it does. Roll Internationalowns the Franklin Mint, Teleflora, and a collection ofPage 52Water HeistWater Heist3agribusinesses—all of which operate in three Californiacounties—including Paramount Citrus, Paramount Farm-ing,and Paramount Farms,Inc.The California Farm BureauFederation wrote that together “these firms constitutethe largest farming company in the United States.” Rollis privately owned by Stewart Resnick, a Beverly Hillsbillionaire and major campaign contributor who gave over$350,000 to the Gray Davis Committee and the anti-recallgroups between 2000 and 2003. Governor Davis choseResnick to co-chair his agriculture-water transition teamwith the champion of the failed Cadiz groundwater bankingscheme, Keith Brackpool.Although the Kern Water Bank Authority oversees a vitalwater resource, its staff is tucked away in the offices ofParamount Farming Company, without so much as a signon the door. Executives from Paramount, who created analmond and pistachio empire over the past two decades,said that they went into the water bank to secure a firmwater supply for their crops. Local newspaper articles,however, quote Paramount’s vice president, who presidesover the water bank’s board of directors, as saying “salesfrom the water bank were contemplated from the time thebank was acquired.” In fact, the paper reports, Paramountis particularly interested in selling water to its parentcompany’s home town: Los Angeles. Paramount executiveshave already had “early talks” with the Los AngelesDepartment of Water and Power about selling “an as-yet-unspecified amount of water.”The website of Paramount’s Los Angeles-based law firmclearly boasts about how the law firm advised ParamountFarming Company to set up a mutual water company(Westside Mutual Water Company) to “own and operate”the Kern Water Bank. Paramount, it seems, has beenplanning for some time to harvest more than just pistachiosand almonds.Irrigating SprawlCalifornia’s population is expected to grow by 20 millionin the next twenty years, and real estate developers arescrambling to get a hold of “secure” water supplies for theirsprawling subdivisions. Public Citizen found a water salescontract between WV Acquisitions, a Roll Internationalsubsidiary whose president is also president of ParamountFarming Company, and Newhall Land and FarmingCompany, the largest developer in the state. Newhall hasbeen taking advantage of the 1994 backroom deregulationof the SWP to go shopping for paper water contracts for thenew “master-planned” city it plans to build in northern LosAngeles County.Such sales involve water supplies that are farfrom secure because they are based on allocated state watersupplies: that is, paper water. Furthermore, this report raisesthe essential question: Should corporations like Paramountand Newhall be allowed to profit from buying and sellingwater that belongs to all Californians?Usurping Democracy, Again:The Napa PropositionIn July 2003, just months after the seven-year lawsuitchallenging the Monterey Amendments by a coalitionof environmentalists, public advocates, and one StateWater Project contractor was settled, the participants inthe Monterey meetings met again, this time in Napa. Theagreement that resulted from these meetings—called theNapa Proposition—plans to further integrate the SWP andthe federal Central Valley Project (CVP). Such integrationwill allow landowners, principally in the San Joaquin Valleyand Southern California, to trade off the federal project’ssuperior storage capacity and the state project’s greaterpumping capacity with one goal in mind:to continue pump-ing water to agribusinesses,developers,and water marketingbarons in Southern California, unabated by either federalor state endangered species acts, water quality issues in theDelta, or the unmet needs of communities in the CentralValley that don’t have access to clean drinking water.End Game: Water as Public TrustCalifornia’s public water utilities and resources are governedby a plutocracy—a select group of private corporations,individuals, and semi-public and public officials all workingin tandem to “game” state water policy. They meet in closedsessions and rewrite public policy, tailoring their edits to theinterests of monopoly-like agribusiness corporations andreal estate developers. Is this a conspiracy theory? No. It isjust business as usual.The water plutocracy must be replaced with a vibrant waterdemocracy.Public Citizen strongly advocates returning the State WaterProject to broad public use and oversight so that it canbenefit all Californians, rather than only a select group ofLos Angeles corporations. Water must be maintained as apublic good, held in trust for broad and equitable use, not acommodity bought and sold by the highest echelons of thecorporate elite.Page 64Water HeistWater Heist5We recommend the following concrete steps for accom-plishing this goal:Return Kern Water Bank to Public ControlParamount and its Westside Mutual Water Companyshould never have been allowed to “own and operatethe water bank.” The privatization of this vital publicresource should be reversed.Repeal the Monterey AmendmentsThe Monterey Amendments should be repealed andthe State Water Project contracts should be rewrittenwith an eye to water conservation and environmentalrestoration as well as the original stated purpose of theproject: to reallocate California’s water resources in anequitable manner.Eliminate Paper WaterThe Department of Water Resources continues tomaintain on paper that the State Water Project candeliver almost twice as much as nature provides. Thewater “entitlements” of the twenty-nine State WaterProject contractors should be re-drafted to fit the actualcapability of the project to deliver.No Resale of State Water Project WaterThe individual contractors that receive state projectwater should not be allowed to profit from resellingthat water, whether it is back to the state EnvironmentalWater Account or to real-estate developers.Democratize Water and Irrigation DistrictsWater and irrigation districts that receive public waterdeliveries from the SWP should be transparent andaccountable to the public. There should be elected,public representatives on the boards of such districtswho would represent the non-landowning populationaffected by water policy decisions made most often inclosed meetings.NATURE PROVIDES ENOUGH WATER for Californiato meet all of its needs: to sustain water-efficient familyfarms and industries; to provide safe drinking water topresent and future generations; and to restore and maintainCalifornia’s much-abused environment. Nature providesenough water; that is, unless mismanagement and greedintervene and allow for the state’s public water supplies to bemanipulated for profit. Too much is at stake to let this waterheist continue.

I grew up in walla walla washington born there 1958 and we are called downwinders one of the highest cancer rates in the country. Yes people you have been sold out like we were hanford was where the atomic bomb was made that was dropped on japan. I urge all voters to vote out all incumbents that sit on city council. And i might add don't vote for any of them running for any state office. You have been scewed like we were in the old days. Lets keep this an environmental paradise that it is and not let the money rule but the interest of whats best for our environment rule.

Expert predict that in 10-20 years 'water' will be more valuable than oil.

He who controls the water, will control everything.

If you read this doc carefully, you'll see that Monterey&Santa-Cruz were home of the folks who have principally tried to stop Roll's ( Resnicks ) water-grab. I really think that this 'spraying' is largely pay-back, cuz they can, when you own EVERY-FUCKING governor in CALI DEMorPUG for the past 20+ years you can do anything.

BEND-Oregon is obviously a pawn in this game of world-chess. This will all effect us very much. Bend will be the next Hanford, and we'll be up to our eyeballs in toxic chemicals.

***

Why BEND? Why is Suterra expanding here, and making the toxic poison to be DUMPED on California??

Because under Cali's strict environmental laws, no city in Cali would allow this factory.

Bend is the perfect place, a back-water little mtn town of hicks, that want 'cargo' brought to their desert Isl.

In many ways Bend is like 'Fiji-Water', Roll has pumped so much water from the Fiji-Islands, that the natives now can't get water.

Bend is exactly like Fiji-Isl's, these people like Resnick go to Islands of dumbfucks who worship the 'cargo-cult', and give them a little cargo in return for their heart&soul.

Cali's would NEVER tolerate a 'Suterra bio-chem plant', but in Bend anything is possible, cuz Pug's own the media (BULL&SORE), and the population are grifters and parasites.

BP, It's critical that you understand Orygon history in Bend, note below from our BULL, that Bend-Sci is the mother of Suterra. Bend Sci is the child of Harry Lonsdale the richest DEM in BEND. Resnick ( Roll Corp, bought Suterra in 2000 ) is the richest DEM in California. The left under BUSH enables this stuff, but the DEM's profit, this is why there is total silence.

Like Gore Vidal say's, there is no left or right in the USA, only two kinds of right-wingers. The DEM's of Cali & Bend are both right-winger's.

***

Suterra scouting Juniper RidgeLocal biotechnology company wants construction to begin by November

By Peter Sachs / The BulletinJuly 23, 2008

Suterra, the Bend maker of high-tech pesticides, is the latest firm to shop for land at Bend’s 1,500-acre Juniper Ridge development, according to a document obtained by The Bulletin.

The biotechnology company, a spin-off of pharmaceutical firm Bend Research, focuses on pheromone-based....

Suterra, the Bend maker of high-tech pesticides, is the latest firm to shop for land at Bend’s 1,500-acre Juniper Ridge development, according to a document obtained by The Bulletin.

The biotechnology company, a spin-off of pharmaceutical firm Bend Research, focuses on pheromone-based....

*

Of course we know that there are NO pheromone's used on spraying in Calif, this is all marketing and sales mythology, the product is actually a toxic synthetic who Suterra lawyers attempted to prevent from being made public. This repeat of 'phermones' is just more BULL from the BULL.

(NewsTarget) On September 9th, 2007 several planes hired by the State of California Food and Agricultural Department (CDFA) flying at an altitude of approximately 500ft sprayed the untested biochemical, CheckMate®OLR-F ( Suterra, Bend, Oregon ), on over 30,000 citizens in Monterey and other surrounding cities in California. This occurred without the permission of the citizens. The spraying continued for three nights from approximately 8pm to 5am. About 1,500 pounds of biochemical were dumped on the cities. Many citizens did not even know what was happening when the planes were buzzing overhead.

An 11 month old child nearly died from breathing difficulties. A six year old child developed asthma as a result of the aerial spraying. Over one hundred people signed affidavits stating that they got sick from the spraying. Hundreds of people had symptoms like; shortness of breath, headaches, dizziness, burning lungs, nausea, and muscle aches.

The excuse for aerial spraying is not a deadly disease carrying mosquito, but a moth whose larva may eat some leaves of some plants; called the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). The CDFA considers the moth an invasive species since it is from Australia. Yet, evidence suggests that the moth has been in California for many years, living peacefully. In response to the moth, the CDFA set up relatively harmless sticky traps, which have captured nearly every Light Brown Apple Moth in the Northern California region.

Governor Schwarzenegger is a strong supporter of the declared emergency; the need to spray untested biochemicals on humans to stop the LBAM from destroying crops.

This aerial spraying violates several state, federal and international laws. It violates the right to personal safety given by the California State Constitution, the very document that creates the California government. It violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protects people with chemical sensitivities and other disabilities from discrimination. It violates the Federal constitutional right to personal liberty. It violates the EPA’s laws against spraying pesticides on people. It violates human rights laws that say that human experimentation without consent is unethical and immoral. It violates criminal laws that claim it is a crime to poison children, or anyone else. It violates pollution laws to spray a toxic substance over plants, animals, and waterways. It violates laws against organized crime and it violates the very tenants of our democracy; a system of government designed to represent the people, not to poison the people to represent private agri-business interests.

Recently, in a series of rapid fire events, the CDFA declared a state of emergency relating to the LBAM claiming that the moths are about to destroy a huge portion of the state’s agricultural crops. The claim is that the LBAM will cause hundreds of millions of dollars of crop damage. Due to this supposed “emergency,” the CDFA claims it must immediately spray an untested biochemical to eliminate this threat as soon as possible despite the reported harms. Mind you, these moth’s only travel within a 20-30 yard diameter of their birth place during their entire life.

The state of emergency is a false declaration because the CDFA cannot produce any meaningful evidence that the LBAM can or would destroy crops and the sticky traps are effective at containing the moths. In Hawaii, the LBAM has been a help to the ecosystem by destroying invasive species and there’s no evidence of crop harm for the last 100 years.

The only emergency seems to be that the State of California, under Governor Schwarzenegger’s helm, has an urgent need to spray as many humans; men, women, children, pregnant women, people with allergies, the elderly, and the sick, with chemicals. There is no sensible explanation as to why they want to do this, nor is there any explanation as to why they think that spraying pesticides on people is a good thing to do.

Spraying chemicals, safe or not safe, on humans against their will is illegal. It is a crime! The Nuremberg Code, established after the horrors of World War II, prohibits human experimentation without the consent of the person who is being experimented upon.

The state does not care about the over 200 health complaints, nor the laws they are violating, but rather cares about the commercial agricultural business. Trade partners with the US may not accept shipments of plants or produce that may have the LBAM. The CDFA has given various figures of the estimated crop damage that the LBAM will cause. Their estimates range from 100 million to 2.7 billion dollars. Now, these estimates are not based on any scientific survey but rather on their opinion and fears.

Even if the harmless moth could cause such damage, it is a dangerous precedent to place the health and safety of United States citizens, especially infants and children, secondary to money. So the CDFA and Governor Schwarzenegger has determined that 100 million dollars of possible damage gives them justification to poison children with chemicals. In this case, economic factors have been given priority over liberty and human value.

And the question I have been asking myself is - who is going to protect the children who will be sprayed?

So what chemicals make up Checkmate OLR-F and LBAM-F Products?

This has been the technical question many people have been asking. The specific details of the chemicals seem to be of less importance than the simple fact that these are chemicals. Synthetic chemicals do not have a place on our bodies without our permission. And they do not have a place in our children’s bodies who have a much lower tolerance to environmental toxins!

My understanding is that approximately 15-20% of the main biochemical is made up of a synthetically derived moth pheromone. This pheromone supposedly confuses the moths and disrupts their mating cycles. I am unaware of any scientific evidence to prove that the pheromone is effective at controlling the LBAM population. I supposed the CDFA’s plan is to see how it works after a year or more of spraying. This is essentially biochemical testing. And the problem is that they are doing it on the public on a large scale, against the people’s will. Due to the declaration of an emergency, the CDFA allow themselves to bypass the normal environmental review process meant to examine such questions.

The concern with the Checkmate chemicals is not so much about the pheromone, but rather the pheromone distribution system. The pheromone is encapsulated in a micro-capsule (like a miniature pill) which the CDFA brags is biodegradable. What they do not tell you is that the capsule needs to dry out to biodegrade. In water environments (like your body), the pheromone stays encapsulated. The micro-capsule takes approximately 30 days to degrade. The full degradation occurring within 30 days is unlikely because Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties experience frequent rain and dampness from the Pacific Ocean. Thus, the people in the areas that are sprayed will be inhaling and touching miniature pills. Once in their bodies, the capsule will likely slowly degrade causing moth pheromone to be released directly into people’s bloodstream.

The micro-capsule is made out of what are falsely called “inert” ingredients. Again, the EPA brags that these “inert” ingredients are mostly ionized water. However, they forget to tell you that there are also two known dangerous toxic substances in the inerts - tricaprylyl methyl ammonium chloride (TMAC) and polymethylene polyphenyl isocyanate (PPI).

The breathing problems and asthma-like conditions are known side effects of PPI. So how is the state legally able to spray it on people?

The way they illegally avoid the law and lie to people, so that people will be lulled into a stupor, is by saying that PPI, along with other ingredients, are actually not in the pesticide. Well, this is about 5% true and 95% a lie. Say you are baking a cake; you use flour, sugar, some eggs and other ingredients, and you bake it. One could argue that, in the final cake product, there is no flour but rather a new chemical compound called cake. In the same way, when PPI and other ingredients are processed, they meld and bind together and change their chemical form. They no longer resemble exactly their original substances, just like cake does not look much like the flour it was made of. When you examine the final biochemical, you will see no PPI but rather some new toxic substance.

Since there is no independently verifiable evidence that these new chemical compounds are toxic or not, other than 117 signed affidavits of people who got sick, and since there is a so-called “emergency”, no thorough testing needs to be done. It is a devious way to avoid the law. The end result is that we must “trust” the EPA to say the chemicals are safe. It’s hard to trust the EPA because, for example, with water fluoridation the entire employee’s union at the EPA came out to say that water fluoridation is dangerous and harmful while the official position of the EPA is that water fluoridation is a good thing. It also becomes more difficult to win a court case against the aerial spraying when you cannot get any evidence that the chemicals are dangerous because you are not allowed to independently verify anything that the EPA alleges.

Strangely, the CDFA came out with precautions for this “non-toxic” chemical. Recommendations such as; to close all your windows during the spray, to stay inside, to hose everything off in the morning before you touch it, and to not touch anything that is covered with the chemical residue (anything outside) were encouraged. These warnings are good ideas since the micro-capsule can easily be inhaled, stays stuck on things, or remains in the air. I recently checked the CDFA website looking to quote this document and they had removed all warnings about the chemical, claiming now that it is totally safe. Perhaps this was spurred by the CDFA Secretary of Agriculture A.G. Kawamura’s concern that citizens would waste too much water following the CDFA’s instructions to wash the chemical off of things before touching them. It is eerie how A.G. Kawamura is concerned about saving water and our environment, but is totally oblivious to the fact that hundreds of people have been poisoned due to his aerial spraying efforts.

Another concern is the Checkmate OLR-F and LBAM-F warning label from the manufacturer:

“Keep Out of Reach of Children”

“Caution: Harmful if absorbed through the skin. Causes moderate eye irritation. Avoid contact with skin, eyes, or clothing. Harmful if inhaled. Avoid breathing vapor or spray mist.” The criminals at the CDFA claim we should not worry about this warning label. According to the CDFA’s toxicity theory, since the biochemical is going to be inhaled and touched in smaller doses, this warning is no longer necessary as it refers only to those who handle the chemicals.”

Due to this premise, the CDFA insists that the 117 documented complaints of illnesses are psychosomatic and are not caused by the Checkmate. They continue to spray without thoroughly investigating these health claims. Infants cannot get psychosomatic illnesses because they are too young to make things up like that. The CDFA are hypocrites because when a doctor reports that someone is sick to the CDFA, and if that person had recently ingested certified raw milk, they automatically shut down the milk business even without evidence that the milk caused the illness. (The milk, in this case, is never the source of illness because the cows are healthy.) On one hand, they overly penalize raw milk producers for things that might cause illness and on the other hand they ignore cases which definitely cause illness by their own hands.

Spraying chemicals on people is a crime, safe or not.

This is an outrage and this is sickening.

It used to be easy to turn a blind eye to government corruption because we could avoid it. You can avoid vaccinations by claiming an exemption. You can avoid polluted soaps and shampoos by buying natural ones, and you can avoid pesticide ridden foods by choosing organic. (In case you are wondering, strawberries and other produce sprayed with Checkmate will still be certified organic by the State, so you won’t know you are eating pesticide ridden produce.) But the citizens of Monterey, Santa Cruz, Seaside, Los Lomas and other communities consisting of over 100,000 people who are scheduled to be spray bombed, some beginning today for up to six nights in a row, do not have the choice. Their personal boundaries have been violently violated by the CDFA.

Now, you cannot turn a blind eye anymore to what the government does. We need to acknowledge that these things are wrong, whether we can avoid them or not. When we do not stand up against evil, we affirm it. When we say what is happening is smart, we affirm that the evil doer is good because we do nothing to stop them.

I encourage you, in every way possible, to not sit back here. When you see someone doing wrong, whether it is a relative, a neighbor, or the local government, speak up. We need to stop this juggernaut. It is truly a terrifying experience because I have a pregnant partner and a young child and I have to move away from here to avoid being sprayed, to avoid being force vaccinated with synthetic moth hormone. The last bastion of hope is that the Santa Cruz City Council narrowly voted to sue the criminals doing this. It is unclear whether their lawsuit will be effective.

Checkmate.

The name for the biochemical Checkmate has two meanings. First, to check (stop) mating. Although there is no reliable evidence that it will check mating, for all we know, it could cause the moths to mutate and mate more. The second meaning of checkmate is a position in the game of Chess. This is a position when you have your opponent trapped no matter what move they do. They cannot win so they must resign and lose the game. Ironically, it is not the moths who are in the position of checkmate, but rather the citizens of Monterey, Marina, Pacific Grove, Sand City and Seaside (cities near Carmel and the famous Pebble Beach Golf course). These citizens must literally run, and escape, for the sake of their children from their own homes because a toxic cloud of government corruption is about to rain down upon them. It is these citizens who are in the position of checkmate. The difference here is that losing can mean a chronic disease, illness, and perhaps worse.

What you can do is call your state and federal representatives and encourage them to push through laws that prohibit aerial spraying. Encourage California State Senators and Federal Representatives to engage in a criminal investigation because poisoning people, children, and the elderly is a crime. Just because the people engaged in this work for the government, it doesn’t make them immune to our laws. Support 1hope.org, and the City of Santa Cruz, to fight back.

Tell everyone!

Spread this news. Let’s tell the whole world the truth about civil rights in the good ole’ US of A.

If enough people know, this cause will be greatly advanced. Also, process your feelings about this, the anger, the rage, the terror, and the hatred it brings up. Feel how you want to protect those in the aerial spray path, that inner voice speaking within you saying, “NO! this is wrong, it must stop”.

May the criminals face the real consequences of their crimes and be brought to justice. And may the people of Northern California be protected from untested synthetic chemicals forced upon them.

See below for more information, action items, and pesticide ingredients.

More information:

See 1hope.org, www.lbamspray.info, and www.stopthespray.org (You can sign the petition)

Also California State Senator Laird has written an excellent letter, opposing the spraying, citing dozens of unawsererd questions about the CDFA’s shameful behavior. This can help you understand the issue better. (democrats.assembly.ca.gov/MEMBERS/A27/moth.htm)

Published Pesticide Ingredients Scheduled For Human Experimentation beginning Wednesday 10/24/07 (There may be other unpublished ones)

polymethylene polyphenyl isocyanate (Pesticide manufacturer Suterra acknowledges this ingredient is used to make Checkmate, but EPA claims ingredient is not in final product)

The best thing you can do is contact Governor Schwarzenegger, even if you are not a California citizen. Governor Schwarzenegger has the power to stop this. Right now, he clearly supports the program claiming such aerial spraying is necessary. Tell him you are opposed to his need to spray toxic chemicals on children to stop a harmless moth.

This week, former presidential adviser, Karl Rove, has been the subject of international headlines, greeting the demands that he appear before Congress with a queer and deafening silence. According to his lawyer, Rove has been ordered by the White House (the Bush Administration) not to obey the subpoena or give testimony about the possible politicization of the Department of Justice. Congress may have to send out the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest Rove and bring him to a hearing, no matter what President Bush wants.

A couple of weeks ago, I watched Senator Barbara Boxer convene a hearing, the subject of which was the profound corruption that has rotted away the core of the Environmental Protection Agency. Special interests, dirty money and corrupt politicians have changed the mission of the EPA from being one of protecting public and environmental health to being one of protecting the profits of chemical manufacturers and polluters. Strangely, the head of the EPA did not show up for the hearing, despite requests that he be present to answer questions regarding the obvious criminal activity going on in his agency. Again, there was a very strange silence in that room, filled with senators and media but lacking any testimony from the head of the EPA.

Here in California, we have the same silence ringing in our ears. With the threat of a biochemical assault hanging over the heads of 7 millions citizens, people are demanding answers to their questions and are being met with silence.

I want to know why U.S. Congressman Sam Farr’s direct demand that USDA Secretary, Ed Schafer, and Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, Bruce Knight, explain to him how the LBAM was classified as a class A pest in the first place has still not received a reply over a month later.

I want to know why Major Tim Wilcox, whose baby nearly died after being forced by the CDFA to inhale Checkmate Pesticide in 2007, has never received the slightest acknowledgment from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to whom he wrote, pleading for help.

I want to know why neither Sen. Diane Feinstein, Sen. Barbara Boxer, Senator Carol Migden and Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s letters to the USDA and other officials have received no reply.

I want to know why the Monterey Bay Aquarium refused to let their neighbors speak to their staff regarding the dangers of spraying Monterey Bay, and why, even after hundreds of sea birds died from Checkmate spray, the aquarium has maintained a mysterious silence about the poisoning.

I want to know why not one of the 43 Californian Audubon Society chapters I’ve contacted cares that birds have been and will be killed by blanket aerial spraying of California. I want to know why I have not received a single concerned reply.

What can you add to my list?

The policy of silence in California is deadly. Hundreds of families have already been sickened, untold wildlife has died, and our air and water has been polluted with biochemicals and microscopic plastic which causes human fatality. Again and again, our demands for reasonable answers, for rational explanations as to the logic behind this assault on California are met with, at best, lies and at worst, utter silence.

It would appear that what they are experiencing in Washington D.C., with a president who can order someone to defy congress and a host of agencies that are sweltering in sickly corruption, is happening across the United States.

Let it be remembered that when the Ford Pinto was put out on the market, the manufacturers knew that a certain percentage of purchasers would die because of a malfunction in the car’s construction. But, Ford did the math. And, they realized that the total they would have to pay out in lawsuits was less than the total profits they would make before the car was recalled. So, they made a choice. The innocent people who would die were expendable, because a good margin of profit could still be accrued by releasing the car.

And, isn’t this what we are seeing in our nation and state? For whatever dark and unspeakable reason, the profit being made off the illegal spraying of human beings makes sense to a few criminals. When infants like little Jack Wilcox go into respiratory failure, when infants die after 2, 3, 100, 450 exposures to this deadly pesticide, perhaps a few dollars will be paid out in lawsuits if anyone is committed enough to actually get a ruling against the perpetrators. The money that will have to go out, however, cannot compare to the billions coming in for CDFA and Stewart Resnick, manufacturer of this poison.

They need only bide their time. Keep mum. Spray the people. Scrape away their piles of money. Deal with some small consequences later. In this life, silence is serving them well.

LOS ANGELES, May 05, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) ----Global Clean Energy Holdings, Inc. (OTCBB: GCEH) through its subsidiary GCE Mexico I, LLC has acquired approximately 5,000 acres of land in the State of Yucatan in Mexico. The property will be used for the cultivation of Jatropha curcas. When fully planted the land will be home to over 4.0 million Jatropha trees, which will produce a high quality seed oil and biomass, for more than 30 years.

"The acquisition of this land puts us right on track with our business plan for the commercialization of Jatropha in Latin America," said Richard Palmer, Chief Executive Officer of Global Clean Energy. "This land has the ideal climate to grow Jatropha and keeping with our corporate philosophy, has never been used for agriculture or food production. We have already begun preparing the land for planting and will have plants in the ground this month."

GCE Mexico I, LLC is a 50-50 joint venture with Los Angeles Businessmen Stewart A. Resnick and Selim K. Zilkha, both highly accomplished entrepreneurs who have developed successful agricultural and alternative energy companies. The joint venture's mission is to acquire and develop non-food based land in Mexico to grow Jatropha curcas and commercialize oil and biomass derived from its fruit and seeds. Global Clean Energy Holdings, Inc. manages the operations of the corporation and consolidates the results for financial reporting purposes.

Mr. Resnick is chairman and owner of Roll International Corporation, a Los Angeles-based holding company, and has developed and owns a number of companies, including Paramount Agribusiness, POM Wonderful, Teleflora, FIJI Water, and Suterra. Mr. Zilkha formed Zilkha Renewable Energy, a wind farm developer, in 1998 and sold it to banking giant Goldman Sachs in 2005. Currently he has business interests in Zilkha Biomass Energy, a company developing biomass to electricity solutions in the United States; Socratech, a biotech company that has as its goal the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of a variety of brain disorders; and Laetitia, a vineyard and winery in Arroyo Grande, CA.

About Global Clean Energy Holdings

Global Clean Energy Holdings, Inc. is an emerging renewable energy company focused on the production of non-food based feedstocks used for the production of biofuels. More information regarding Global Clean Energy Holdings, Inc. can be found at www.gceholdings.com.

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Any statements in this press release about Global Clean Energy Holdings expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance are not historical facts and are forward-looking statements for purposes of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the "Act"). These statements are often, but not always, made through the use of words or phrases such as "believe," "feel," "will," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "plan," "forecast," "could," and "would." Examples of such forward looking statements include statements regarding the timing, design, scope, and anticipated results of its efforts to plant, harvest, and commercialize feedstock oil from Jatropha curcas in Mexico. Global Clean Energy Holdings bases these forward-looking statements on current expectations about future events. They involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions that may cause actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by any forward-looking statement. Some of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from estimates or projections in the forward-looking statement include, but are not limited to, the risk that we might not be able to raise sufficient funds to develop the Jatropha plantations in Mexico, that we may face delays or other difficulties in acquiring and cultivating Jatropha farm lands in Mexico, that we may not be able to successfully commercialize Jatropha oil as expected, that the market for our Jatropha products will not grow as expected, and the risk that the Mexican Jatropha project will not achieve expectations because of the risks normally associated with creating a new business in a new market. For additional information about risks and uncertainties Global Clean Energy Holdings faces, see the documents that Global Clean Energy Holdings has filed with the SEC. Global Clean Energy Holdings claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements under the Act, and assumes no obligation and expressly disclaims any duty to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this news release or to reflect the occurrence of subsequent events.

If you’re looking for another way to lessen your impact on the environment might I recommend not buying bottled water; especially bottled water from Fiji.

From Boing Boing

The label on a bottle of Fiji Water says “from the islands of Fiji.” Journey to the source of that water, and you realize just how extraordinary that promise is. From New York, for instance, it is an 18-hour plane ride west and south (via Los Angeles) almost to Australia, and then a four-hour drive along Fiji’s two-lane King’s Highway.

I’ve got to say this one goes in the common sense category. First of all think about how much pollution a trip like that takes. Secondly, who pays $3.00 for a liter and a half of drinking water? Lastly how many Americans don’t have running water and drinking glasses in their homes and offices? Don’t like the taste or purity of what’s coming out of your tap? Buy a filter. Don’t be a sucker and fall for yet another of corporate America’s clever pieces of propaganda.

The message is clear: Bottled water is “good” water, as opposed to that nasty, unsafe stuff that comes out of the tap. But in most cases tap water adheres to stricter purity standards than bottled water, whose source — far from a mountain spring can be wells underneath industrial facilities. Indeed, 40 percent of bottled water began life as, well, tap water. source

In fact the EPA doesn’t regulate bottled water like it does municipal water. At least we have a source of tap water we can largely count on. Because while we suck down artesian water from an island in the South Pacific, it’s worth noting that, “more than half the people in Fiji do not have reliable drinking water.“

Suterra to get $500M for spraying 'CheckMate' over Calif during the next ten years!

Interesting tidbit: Stewart Resnick who owns the company that makes the pesticide spray, Checkmate, is a buddy and contributor to Gov. Arnold’s campaign to the tune of $144,600. Each spraying will cost about $3.5 million and about $3 million of that will go right to Resnick’s company, Suterra. The current plan is to spray us every 30-90 days for 2 - 10 YEARS. So it’ll cost California tax payers somewhere in the area of $500 million (five times the projected losses to agriculture even if the moth were to suddenly become a problem). We’ll get massively dosed with this crap and Resnick will get rich. You can read more here and here as well.

UPDATE: Gov. Arnold has temporarily halted the planned spraying while they do a toxicity test. Unfortunately, one of the scarier things is the plastic pellets the spray is encapsulated in, which will not be tested. Some studies by Knepp and Haferman suggest it will raise air pollution levels. By adding the deadly burden of aerial CheckMate spraying, Dr. Knepp has calculated that 1480 more deaths from pneumonia and cardiovascular disease would occur within 2-3 days after each spraying. Similarly the average 17,000 admissions to hospital from pneumonia will increase by 4600. CDFA intends to spray about 700 square miles, up to 5 nights a month, 9 months a year, for up to 10 or more years. The number of additional deaths will be increased accordingly. These calculations are based on long-term medical studies involving the effects of particulate air pollution in many large U.S. cities. Similar statistical studies in the past resulted in the recognition of coal miner’s disease, the effects of asbestos, and of tobacco where not all the exposed population is immediately affected.

What? You think that’s crazy? I do too. Read more here, especially if you live in the area and don’t feel like sucking up a lungful of evil this summer — they’re planning to start spraying in August. With stuff that has not been tested on humans. Dispersed in little plastic pellets ( Isocyanate&Methyl-Chloride ) that you can suck into your deep lung tissue. To try and wipe out a moth that has been here for 30 years and hasn’t caused a single dollar’s worth of damage yet. (The Light Brown Apple Moth, or LBAM to his buds, has been in Hawaii and New Zealand for over 100 years and they don’t consider it a pest or do anything to try and eradicate it.)

Interesting tidbit: Stewart Resnick who owns the company that makes the pesticide spray, Checkmate, is a buddy and contributor to Gov. Arnold’s campaign to the tune of $144,600. Each spraying will cost about $3.5 million and about $3 million of that will go right to Resnick’s company, Suterra. The current plan is to spray us every 30-90 days for 2 - 10 YEARS. So it’ll cost California tax payers somewhere in the area of $500 million (five times the projected losses to agriculture even if the moth were to suddenly become a problem). We’ll get massively dosed with this crap and Resnick will get rich. You can read more here and here as well.

UPDATE: Gov. Arnold has temporarily halted the planned spraying while they do a toxicity test. Unfortunately, one of the scarier things is the plastic pellets the spray is encapsulated in, which will not be tested. Some studies by Knepp and Haferman suggest it will raise air pollution levels. By adding the deadly burden of aerial CheckMate spraying, Dr. Knepp has calculated that 1480 more deaths from pneumonia and cardiovascular disease would occur within 2-3 days after each spraying. Similarly the average 17,000 admissions to hospital from pneumonia will increase by 4600. CDFA intends to spray about 700 square miles, up to 5 nights a month, 9 months a year, for up to 10 or more years. The number of additional deaths will be increased accordingly. These calculations are based on long-term medical studies involving the effects of particulate air pollution in many large U.S. cities. Similar statistical studies in the past resulted in the recognition of coal miner’s disease, the effects of asbestos, and of tobacco where not all the exposed population is immediately affected.

The company that makes one of the pesticides state officials are considering spraying over the Bay Area to fight the light brown apple moth is owned by a wealthy California agribusinessman who has been a generous contributor to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other state officials.

Among the business owners whose agricultural operations in California could be affected by the insect is Stewart Resnick of Los Angeles, who owns nut and citrus tracts in the Central Valley. His Roll International Corp. owns Paramount Farms, the world’s largest grower of almonds and pistachios, and Paramount Citrus, one of the biggest citrus fruit producers in the United States.

Roll International’s holdings also include Suterra LLC, a fledgling pesticide company in Bend, Ore., that makes CheckMate, a pheromone pesticide that is one of four chemicals being considered for aerial spraying by officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Resnick has been a longtime donor to politicians…

In 2007 the Bush Administration's Agriculture Dept (USDA) and APHIS agency started a program to aerially Spray untested, unwanted Pesticides on the California cities of (and wild habitats neighboring) Monterey and its Bay, Santa Cruz, Alameda, San Jose and San Francisco. This program is to "Eradicate" an innocuous Australian moth (the Light Brown Apple Moth, or LBAM) which has lived in California for at least "several years" and hasn't caused a single dollar's worth of harm - none. This is partially because the moth does not kill anything; it doesn't even defoliate trees or plants.

The USDA then had the US-EPA give overnight approval for California's Dept. of Food & Agriculture (CDFA) to conduct an experimental program to aerially spray cities with a new "Checkmate" Pesticide based on synthetic pheromones - every month until 2010 - but without ever testing the pesticide for harm or effectiveness. USDA then gave CDFA some $90 million dollars to conduct the spraying. CDFA has already crop dusted our Monterey Peninsula twice in 2007 and Santa Cruz once.

HOPE prepared a comprehensive 14 point litigation strategy in August, 2007. We filed our first suit on Sept 24, 2007 to stop aerial pesticide spraying and force CDFA to use non-spraying, non-toxic alternatives. We persuaded the court to halt the spraying for 2 weeks in September 2007. Our case was finally heard on May 8th (originally scheduled for March 7, 2008*). On May 12 we won the lawsuit, Judge Robert O'Farrell agreed with HOPE that there is no emergency and ordered the aerial spraying halted until an Environmental Impact Report is completed.

Update -- We Won - Spraying Halted !!!

Only a month after HOPE won our lawsuit, on June 19, 2008, CDFA and USDA conducted a joint press conference to announce they were abandoning the part of their program of spraying untested pesticides on cities and populated areas. The reality is somewhat more complex, but the aerial pesticide spraying of cities and children is over for the foreseeable future. (Watch HOPE's News column to stay up to date.)

==========================

*CDFA kept delaying turning over the records they used to make their illegal decision to exempt themselves from CEQA that HOPE had to delay our originally scheduled hearing date from March to May.

HOPE Opinion

Our Courts have now confirmed CDFA and USDA have systematically and intentionally deceived the public by falsely claiming that eradicating the LBA moth is not just necessary but an emergency -- even though the LBA moth does not kill anything; and it does not harm humans at all. University of California at Davis Pest experts say there is no evidence it does any more harm than its native relatives in California - essentially none.

The vital point is that -CDFA cannot document a single dollar of damage caused by the LBA moth to California's agriculture or ecosystems - even though the LBA moth has been here for years - and possibly decades ! One reason is the LBA moth is only a "nibbler" it is not a defoliator; even on the trees it prefers - it does not eat much of the leaves.

"LBA moths have been here for years and haven't done any damage, there is no emergency, eradication is impossible because the moths are too widespread, and genuine experts tell us aerial spraying won't work. When substantially more effective, non-spraying, non-toxic, and less costly methods exist, why is CDFA hostile to using the targeted pheromone baited sticky traps which is the only method known to have reduced the moth populations; they have caught and killed all but one of the 20,000 moths found in California?"– Terrence Zito, HOPE Chairman

Untested Checkmate Pesticides Are Not Just Pheromones and not Harmless

The two Checkmate pesticides sprayed on us (OLR-F and LBAM-F) are not just pheromones, they are an untested cocktail of secret chemicals.

Wholly UnTested - The Checkmate pesticide sprayed on us (LBAM-F) has NOT been tested in any way for harm to humans, animals or any biota. US-EPA gave it an Emergency Exemption from testing.

Most of the Checkmate chemical ingredients are secret and misleadingly called "inerts", and the little we know about those inerts is that they are not harmless.

According to a US-EPA document accidentally emailed to the Santa Cruz Sentinel Checkmate LBAM-F includes the following chemicals --

Inert ingredients include -- water, polyvinyl alcohol, tricaprylyl methyl ammonium chloride, sodium phosphate, and polymethylene polyphenyl isocyanate (PMPPI). (EPA later denied the isocyanate is in the product. But because EPA never tested the product, this is not a credible claim. Suterra later confirmed that PPI is one of the ingredients, but disingenuously claims it is all gone in the final product.)

Expert Analysis of Checkmate Ingredients Illuminating Problems with Isocyanates by former EPA scientist. "Aerial spraying of PMPPI microcapsules or PMPPI dust over areas where humans are likely to be exposed directly (that is, where humans may be outside) is ill-advised, in my opinion."

* Secret Harm - 'Despite their harmless sounding name, many so-called inerts are dangerous chemicals that can cause cancer, reproductive harm, nervous system damage and other health effects. However, since they are not listed on pesticide labels, their Identity remains largely a secret to the general public. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognizes over 2,000 substances as legal inert ingredients; only eight of these chemicals must be disclosed on product labels.' - "Toxic Secrets, NCAP 1998"

One Man owns virtually all the water in California, and will soon control all the water in Oregon.

***

Massive Farm Owned by L.A. Man Uses Water Bank Conceived for State Needs

By Mark Arax,, Times Staff Writer

BAKERSFIELD â€" The Kern River, dry as bone, meets Interstate 5 on an expanse of land no longer tamed by agriculture. The last stand of cotton was plowed under a decade ago, and now tumbleweeds hide jackrabbits and coyotes.

But cotton's white gold has given way to new riches stored deep below the ground. That's where 730,000 acre-feet of water â€" a lake worth more than $180 million on the open market â€" awaits the pump.

In a new era of buying and selling water, there may be no bigger stockpile than the Kern Water Bank. It was conceived in the mid-1980s by the state Department of Water Resources as a way to store water in the aquifer in wet years so that it can be pumped out in dry years.

The Kern bank, which was intended to help balance out the state's water supply to cities, farms and fish, has instead allowed Paramount Farming to double its acres of nuts and fruits since 1994.

In recent years, Paramount received enough water from the state to irrigate its existing orchards and withdraw enough water from the bank to plant more trees.

Paramount Farming is now the largest grower and seller of almonds and pistachios in the world, according to an international business directory. Paramount Citrus, also owned by Resnick, ranks as the largest citrus grower and packer in the U.S.

Critics say Resnick's control of the water bank is a glaring example of the perversion of water marketing â€" how a handful of California's most powerful and wealthy men continue to grab the state's most precious natural resource.

The state purchased the 20,000 acres along I-5 and funded the initial planning and plumbing, a public investment totaling $74 million. But the water bank went from public to private hands after a series of closed meetings between state water bureaucrats and large water contractors, including Paramount.

"A water bank designed as a safeguard against drought is being used by Paramount and other mega-farms to grow even bigger," said John Gibler of Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization founded by Ralph Nader.

"In some cases, this water is being promised to major developers, such as Newhall Ranch, as a way to get thousands of houses green-lighted by county governments. A public resource has been privatized by and for the wealthiest."

William D. Phillimore, Paramount's vice president as well as chairman of the Kern Water Bank, said his company is not the only one to benefit.

The water, by dint of legal contracts with the State Water Project, belongs to Paramount and other farming entities that make up five local water districts. Although Paramount does control more than 50% of the water bank, scores of other farming operators, as well as residents in nearby Bakersfield, also draw water from the bank, he said.

By banking water and drawing less from Northern California rivers during dry times, he said, farmers also are helping the environment.

"The water bank, as it currently exists, is an asset for the entire state. The problem with these water deals is they are very convoluted and very complicated," Phillimore said. "But anyone advancing the argument that the benefits are going to one grower hasn't done their homework."

Resnick, one of the richest people in Los Angeles â€" with an estimated net worth of $740 million â€" didn't begin farming in the San Joaquin Valley until the mid-1980s. He and his wife, Lynda, had built their fortune on flowers and burglar alarms before buying the Franklin Mint in 1984 and marketing such items as John Wayne Collector Plates.

Resnick now oversees more than 100,000 acres from his office on Olympic Boulevard in West Los Angeles, placing him second only to cotton king J.G. Boswell, America's biggest farmer with 150,000 acres in Kings County. Paramount's buying spree, which now includes 6,000 acres of pomegranates, would not have been possible without the water bank, managers agree.

But Resnick, 65, isn't inclined to talk about the rise of his farm, which consists of leftover chunks of old Texaco, Mobil Oil and Dole Foods land.

His one subsidiary that controls the largest share of the water bank has no office and no telephone number. His Los Angeles-based holding company, Roll International, has no public relations arm. The secretary answering the phone shoos away reporters with no wasted words. "We don't talk to the press. Goodbye."

The story of how the state's largest water bank â€" jump-started with $74 million in taxpayer money â€" ended up as an integral piece of the private empire of Stewart Resnick begins with a lawsuit, or at least the threat of it.

A seven-year drought ending in the early 1990s pitted Southern California water contractors, such as the Metropolitan Water District, against agricultural contractors, such as the Kern County Water Agency. Each region made its case to the state, telling why it deserved to receive the water guaranteed by long-standing contracts. In the drought's worst years, urban users got 30% of the draw, while Kern farmers received less than 5%.

In 1994, agricultural and urban interests threatened to sue the state for nondelivery. The main parties gathered in a closed-door meeting in Monterey to hash out a settlement. Public interest groups, environmentalists and smaller water contractors â€" locked out of the meeting â€" cried foul.

When it was over, the very flow of California water had been redirected.

The state Department of Water Resources set the stage for water banking and marketing on a larger scale. Water marketing became more important because the State Water Project had never been fully built out. As a result, Water Resources couldn't live up to its yearly contractual obligation to deliver 4.2 million acre-feet of water to cities and farms statewide.

To create more water, the department agreed to turn over its fledgling water bank to the Kern County Water Agency and let area farmers capture more water in wet years. In return for the water bank, Kern agreed to amend its contract with the state by reducing its draw of 1.1 million acre-feet by 45,000 acre-feet.

"At the time we took over the water bank, it was the biggest white elephant boondoggle that DWR had ever wasted its money on. There were no recharge ponds, no new wells," said Scott Hamilton, Paramount's resource planning manager.

"We gave up 45,000 acre-feet of water to get it, and then we spent $30 million on infrastructure. It's the locals here who built the water bank."

Public Citizen, in a report by Gibler titled "Water Heist" to be released today, contends that the state's transfer of the bank led to a water grab by Resnick and other big corporate farmers.

"The state invested a lot of money and created a bank that could store 1 million acre-feet â€" for the benefit of the entire state," Gibler said. "It was absurd to then trade that away to a privileged few."

Gibler argues that the 45,000 acre-foot entitlement that Kern County gave up was really "paper water." It existed only as a promise on a contract between the Kern County Water Agency and the Department of Water Resources. Because the state consistently fell short on those contracts, Gibler said, the 45,000 acre feet wasn't real water actually shipped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

"Kern County gave up a pittance at best and got an invaluable water storage facility in return," he said.

Current and former staff at Water Resources say both sides are partly right. Yes, the 45,000 acre-feet could be considered an illusion in most years. But the water bank itself was nowhere near to being in working order when the state handed it over to Kern.

"We bought the land and put in the money, but we couldn't make it work," said Steve Macaulay, the department's former chief deputy director.

With the bank in hand, the Kern County Water Agency signed a joint powers agreement in 1995 with four other local water districts and one private water company. The agreement divided up the ownership of the water bank, with the largest share, about 48%, going to Westside Mutual Water, a subsidiary of Paramount Farming.

Dudley Ridge Water District, whose president, Joseph C. MacIlvane, is also the president of Paramount Farming, got 10%.

As a result, Resnick now controlled a water bank capable of extracting 240,000 acre-feet each year â€" enough water to furnish the needs of 500,000 households.

"He's got some 5 million almond trees planted in the desert. Most of the water has gone to create a nut empire," Gibler said. "By controlling the water bank, they are now poised to profit from water sales to urban development.

Resnick, a major philanthropist and art collector who has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic political candidates, including personal friends Bill and Hillary Clinton, has put his farming empire in the hands of experts, locals say.

Paramount's vice president, Phillimore, declined to answer questions about the company's holdings or plans to sell water for urban growth. "We honestly don't like to share information with people," he said. "It's one of the advantages of being a private company."

Other Paramount managers took issue with the notion that the water bank was purely a vehicle to enrich Resnick. When the Delta has needed more water during heavy pumping months to spare fish, the Kern Water Bank has been a willing seller, they said.

Today, though, the massive underground pool is controlled by one corporate farmer, wealthy Los Angeles businessman Stewart Resnick, who owns Paramount Farming Co., the Franklin Mint, and Teleflora, a flowers-by-wire service. Best know for Suterra of Bend, OR the US leader in Bio-Weapon encapsulation systems.

*

Resnick also owns Suterra of Bend, OR the #1 bio-weapons manufacturer in the US, with specialization in militarized pheromones using iso-cyanate encapsulation thereby controlling a delayed release of any compound or chemical.

Think Anthrax, Botulism, ... anything you could spray by air today, can be deferred to effect by denial for years.

The US military has actively been researching encapsulated Pheronomes for years for such uses as the 'gay-bomb' ( see wiki ), or drugs that induce mass fear in enemy soldiers, or cause mass homicidal tendency's. The US military calls these less-than-lethal weapons. Suterra of Bend Oregon is on the leading edge of this technology.

Suterra call's the material used for encapsulation 'inert', but the fact is iso-cyanate is used, which is non other than over the counter 'crazy-glue' a material that will bond to anything. The thickness of the material when deposited in lungs can control the time release of the material in the blood stream.

Each aerial application of Checkmate OLR-F and Checkmate LBAM-F costs approximately $3.5 million, paid directly to the manufacturer, Suterra, LLC, of Bend, Oregon.

From the October 2008 Idaho Observer:

California to expand LBAM biochemical eradication program to control mating habits of harmless moth

The "governator" is following the "Bush doctrine" of "preemptive war" by overspraying hundreds of thousands of Californians with a dangerous, expensive, experimental "cyborg" of a drug to keep a few thousand light brown apple moths (LBAMs) from mating. Though they have yet to cause a dollar’s worth of damage to the state’s apple crop, state officials guess the little LBAMs may someday cause a $100 million shortfall in apple crop revenues. Numerous clues are surfacing to suggest that it is not the mating habits of moths that are at issue here. The following article was lifted from Sofia Smallstorm’s website at www.911weknow.com as an appropriate and important continuation of the LBAM story we ran last month. The piece provides a vital link to proving that the government is not just interested in killing bugs. The "LBAM eradication program" is exemplary of government-sponsored poison programs all over the country and how easy it is to hire a few of our fellow sufferers to hold the nozzle, so to speak.

By Rami Nagel

Sometimes bad dreams do come true. My bad dream was that the government announced a quarantine and forced everybody to be vaccinated for some fake disease. In my dream, I took my family and fled to the hills to avoid being vaccinated.

Now, nine months later, this dream has come true. In an emergency, I relinquished my rental contract and moved my pregnant partner and three-and-a-half-year-old daughter out of Santa Cruz, California, to avoid being exposed to potentially deadly chemicals.

The chemicals, known by their trade names as Checkmate OLR-F and Checkmate LBAM-F, have been sprayed via state-owned airplanes in September and October in Monterey County, California. These same aerial chemicals, despite their known health risks, were sprayed on two nights, Nov. 8 and 9, 2007, over the people of Santa Cruz County. The purpose of this spray is to "control the mating habits of the light brown apple moth (LBAM) due to the possibility of $100 million of damage" (this figure is not a fact, but based on a government guess).

Government’s pesticide experiment program

The California Department of Food and Agriculture’s own doctor acknowledges, in court documents, that aerial application of this chemical has not been tested. This means chemicals are being sprayed on young children, nursing mothers, people with asthma, lung problems, heart problems, the elderly, the disabled, the homeless and the chemically sensitive—and this chemical formulation has NEVER been tested on even a piece of dirt, let alone humans.

The newly designed Faroes Statement, a consensus of over 200 scientists, calls for a precautionary approach with respect to exposure of fetuses and children to environmental toxins. The consensus is that exposure of fetuses or children to chemicals can cause increased susceptibility to disease and disability later in life. In addition, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has specific directives and codes that state they should not experiment with pesticides on pregnant women or infants. It is a fact, since this aerial pesticide has not been proven to control the moth’s mating habits and has not been proven safe to animals or humans, that this is an experiment.

In Monterey, approximately 100,000 residents were exposed to untested chemicals to control the mating habits of fewer than 750 moths. In Santa Cruz County, over 100,000 residents will be exposed to untested chemicals to control the mating habits of less than 9,000 moths. This is not a one-time application, but will continue monthly beginning again in February, for nine months and then repeated for up to a total of three years.

This program will only control the moth’s mating habits; it will not eliminate the moth. At worst, it will be ineffective, cost taxpayers millions of dollars, and cause permanent disability to residents and their pets, all over a moth that has yet to cause even $1 of damage in California.

Each aerial application of Checkmate OLR-F and Checkmate LBAM-F costs approximately $3.5 million, paid directly to the manufacturer, Suterra, LLC, of Bend, Oregon.

The projected expense of this eradication "attempt" will cost over $70 million dollars to spray Monterey and Santa Cruz counties the proposed nine times. The California Department of Food and Agriculture has created a map showing the spray area will grow and encompass various portions of the entire San Francisco Bay Area. (www.cdfa.ca.gov/phpps/PDEP/lbam/maps.html) .

The United States EPA has authorized an emergency permit that could allow the CDFA to aerially spray the state of California until the year 2010. This Light Brown Apple Moth "eradication" could cost Californians more than $500 million dollars, five times the projected amount of losses to the agricultural industry if the moth were actually to infest the state.

Documented and undocumented pesticide damage to humans

While this moth has not yet caused any damage to crops, the damage that Checkmate’s chemicals has caused to humans is enormous. In Monterey County, the first county in California to be sprayed, documented affidavits show that citizens got sick, ill or suffered life-threatening reactions to the toxic spray.

One infant in the City of Monterey nearly died from inhalation of the experimental biochemical and now has permanent lung damage. Dozens of women in cities throughout the Monterey Peninsula are reporting problems with their reproductive systems after exposure to the pesticide, including sudden, severe and irregular menstrual cycles, extreme cases of tender and swollen breasts and the recurrence of menopause symptoms in older women. Other side effects of both Checkmate OLR-F and Checkmate LBAM-F include asthma and sudden breathing difficulties, chest pain, vomiting, lethargy, fatigue and extreme mood swings. Some people have coughed up blood and have gotten bloody noses from Checkmate exposure.

It is not typical that such minute amounts of chemicals can cause such severe damage as described above. The explanation for the severe side effects is that the chemicals are in miniature balls of volatile plastic called "microcapsules"; thus chemicals can be introduced deeply into the body through swallowing or inhalation of the micro-sized particles. It is as if this "agricultural" product acts more like a drug on humans than as a pesticide on moths.

Thousands of residents, including myself, have undocumented pesticide damage. I lived 40 miles from the October Monterey spray zone and, on the last day of aerial spraying, my entire family became ill. My daughter vomited. I had severe intestinal distress and could not eat for several days. I felt nervous and anxious, as if I had the caffeine equivalent of 10 cups of coffee.

And for the first time in my life, I had yellow-red colored urine (I am now mostly recovered).

After talking to and hearing about how dozens of other Santa Cruz residents experienced the same or similar symptoms, on or near the same day, I realized it was a result of the spray.

Recently I learned that this exposure may not have been from pesticide drift, but from a rogue plane releasing chemicals. Other witnesses linked the red color to the Checkmate formulations, seeing small red droplets where the Checkmate has contacted metallic objects.

The questions I ask myself are: What type of chemical, in such small doses, causes such profound harm? Why does a chemical claimed to be harmless to humans by the EPA, the CDFA and Governor Schwarzenegger have a significant and severe effect on the female reproductive system?

Microcapsules = Microwarfare

The aerial application of Checkmate OLR-F and Checkmate LBAM-F is designed out of the concept of miniature plastic sphere-like particles, generally the same size as the width of a human hair. They are called "microcapsules." Each capsule is a biologically "loaded gun" due to its own chemical make-up and that of the pheromones held inside. Research indicates that the capsules are likely made out of a urea-formaldehyde polymer—the industry standard.

These "agricultural" microcapsules have never been tested safe for humans. Thus, the life of these microcapsules inside our bodies is unknown, as are the health risks of inhaling or swallowing them. Preliminary research on the microcapsules have revealed that they are made of a new technology, and that the large capsules are made up of a cluster of smaller 3-4 micronsize capsules—a size of capsule that can be deadly to humans over the long term.

Many of the chemicals used to make the Checkmate OLR-F and Checkmate LBAM-F products have been deemed harmful for human consumption, like butelated hydroxyl tolune (BHT). On the label for BHT it says (in big letters) "Do not inhale this product. Dangerous to respiratory health."

BHT is also known as DBPC, a dangerous pesticide known to cause sterility in men. Recently, Dole Food Company lost a lawsuit in which Nicaraguan banana farmers were exposed to DBPC.

Within these microcapsules is an endocrine disrupter which attaches itself to estrogen receptors and forces the activation and constant production of estrogen to occur in the human body. This happens for men, women and children. This chemical is called 2 hydroxy 4n octyloxybenzophenone.

Won’t even work.There is a great chance that Checkmate OLR-F and Checkmate LBAM-F will not even prove to be effective against the moth. The EPA’s own documents state that, "The studies show that only a small proportion of the microcapsules actually release any pheromone or only a portion of the total pheromone loaded into the capsule is capable of ever being released."

In light of such statements made, the technology cannot work.

Time release technology. In addition to the agriculture industry, microcapsules are used in medical and military technology. In medical technology, microcapsules are used to time-release drugs into the body. The medical capsules are made out of a bio-compatible material that the body can easily absorb. In military technology, they can be used for chemical shields, or for experimental "non-lethal" weapons (that means the weapon does not cause immediate death). These thoughts do not leave one with a pleasant taste about how these microcapsules are being used in our neighborhoods and communities.

Some Monterey county residents report asthma attacks increasing, others report coughing so hard and for such long durations that they cough up blood. One healthy adult male in the sprayed Salinas area who jogs five miles daily has developed asthma. For the first time in his life, he must use an inhaler to help him breathe. The local doctor he sees is out of inhaler samples; he’s given them all away.

These and other serious side effects associated with the aerial application of Checkmate OLR-F and Checkmate LBAM-F are being captured by citizen groups daily. Local doctors are refusing to document that their patients’ symptoms have any relation to the aerial spraying. One doctor even told his patient (who was very ill from the spraying) that he would have to consult with his lawyer before discussing the matter further.

An attorney representing the CDFA declared to a judge in Monterey County Superior Court during a hearing where a local environmental organization was suing the CDFA to stop the aerial spraying, that the CDFA has no intention of monitoring or following up on any of the health concerns or complaints that have been or will be filed in association with this aerial application.

I leave you with part of this press release by a strong opponent to the aerial spraying, California State Senator John Laird:

"Of greatest concern to me is the notion that speculative economic impacts may be outweighing the need to protect human health. In Monterey county there are reports of more than 200 health complaints associated with aerial spraying. Yet, to date there is no evidence that reports have been analyzed and a promised ‘white paper’ on the toxicological data on the pheromone product and the health complaints taken as a whole has not been released. In fact, in his October 26th letter to me, CDFA Secretary Kawamura indicated there are no plans to either study long-term effects of the spraying or conduct an epidemiological analysis of the complaints CDFA has received.

"In light of the unresolved health complaints and unanswered scientific questions, the ‘precautionary principle’ should serve as a guide. It has been described as a political and moral principle that says if an action or policy could harm the public or the environment, the burden of proof falls on the proponent of the action—rather than on the public.

"It was determined in Superior Court that the County of Santa Cruz failed to meet the burden of proof required to obtain a temporary restraining order against the state. However, in the court of public opinion, the burden of proof ought to be on CDFA to prove LBAM-F and OLR-F are safe prior to spraying it on residential populations monthly for an open-ended period of time."

[Note: It seems apparent that the reproductive viability of humans, not moths, is being targeted by this program. It also seems apparent that the "governator" is willing to expose people to experimental toxic chemicals without their informed consent.

The world was appalled that the Nazis were using humans as test subjects for medical experimentation and sentenced those conducting such experiments to long prison terms and death at Nuremburg. Why should those Americans responsible for such experimentation today not be viewed as criminals, tried and sentenced accordingly?]

You don't have to treat others well, or worry about the community, if you can just get up and go tomorrow.

*

I still say the NAZI Germany analogy holds.

In a few years California Tribunal Courts will be up here dragging BEND-OR war criminals off, and everyone will be so fucking surprised.

Like our fucking selection of candidates, who in the fuck would run for office in this town? Other than a PUSSY who wants cargo, the only gig in this town is three gigs.

1.) Exempt real estate property tax for sacred land-holders.2.) Exempt SDC cost for sacred builders.3.) Open the doors to military production of the worst fucking poisons on earth, cuz the future is bio-weapons and Bend-OR is going to be the epicenter of the action, and everybody is going to get rich.

Eventually this place is going to be a shit-hole of your worst fucking dream. The Rich will pay NO tax of any kind.

Talk about social-security what is military spending? Just community welfare.

The bizarre thing about BEND-OR, is OUR State pol's didn't lobby for the weaponization of Bend, it came through Schwarnegger, who lobbied for Resnick. Why did Resnick pick Bend-OR?? Why here?? Why invest here??

Most likely the WATER, we got lots of WATER and RESNICK loves water, as you all SHOULD KNOW BY NOW, Resnick OWNS the CALIFORNIA-WATER under the ground, I kid you not.

Cali would NEVER allow Resnick to make his poison, and OREGON pol's would never get the OK, so what did BUSH-CHENEY setup??

Homeland Security authorizes $500M by Bush-Cheney, which passes through USDA to Schwarnegger, which passes to Suterra LLC of Resnick.

Huge military production in ORYGUN, and NOBODY is involved, and everyone gets denial. Trouble is from day-one when BUSH-CHENEY won office in 2000, they were working with HOLLERN, no accident that NOBODY pays any SDC at Juniper-Ridge, and that the taxpayer picks up the tab.

My point here folks is who you elect in ORYGUN don't make a fucking bit of SHIT, $500M is a lot of money, and money is politics, and the MAJORITY of the money coming to BEND is outside of the scope of our political influence.

So go ahead and vote for dwiddle-dee, or twiddle-doh, but realize that the $500M power-ball will continue to roll towards HOLLERN&CO.

Now the state's pest control efforts also are piquing free-speech lawyers, who say a judge considering the program's future this week could break new ground as he weighs the public's desire to know what's in the spray against the pesticide maker's right to keep its formula secret.

State attorneys asked a federal judge Thursday to let them resume aerial spraying, despite residents' concerns that the chemical mixture made them ill.

Many of the product's ingredients remain a mystery, cloaked in nondisclosure agreements in a federal law governing pesticides that make them exempt from public records requirements.

“With few exceptions, the First Amendment says when there is great public interest in this type of information, the government can't keep it from being disseminated in the public,” said David Greene, executive director of the First Amendment Project, a nonprofit that defends free-speech rights. “The question the Supreme Court has never answered is what happens if that information is also a trade secret.”

Since March, when a retired botanist in Berkeley found the first light brown apple moth in a trap in his backyard, the crop-eating Australian pest has infested 12 counties from north of San Francisco to Los Angeles.

State agriculture authorities designed an aerial spraying program to combat it using a synthetic pheromone that keeps the moth from mating without killing it and hired night-flying planes to douse communities in Monterey County for several nights last month.

Judge Robert O'Farrell halted the program last week after hundreds of residents from Monterey to Santa Cruz – including an 11-month-old baby boy – complained of respiratory problems and aching stomachs.

Agricultural officials warn that if left unchecked, the moth could devour up to 250 species of plants and cause $2.6 billion in crop losses.

The pheromone spray they've used to combat it – a product called Checkmate that's manufactured in Bend, Ore., by Suterra, LLC – has been applied before in other states and abroad with no effect on human health, said Steve Lyle, a spokesman for the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

Company officials say residents' concerns are unwarranted.

“People are upset because the government has the authority to spray without their consent,” said Suterra spokesman Steve Hartmeier. “If they were spraying people with Santa Cruz City water they would be concerned because it had too much chlorine in it, and chlorine is a carcinogen.”

Still, O'Farrell said the lack of sound science about the product's components were cause to halt the spraying last week, after environmentalists sued, claiming the state never prepared an environmental impact report to ensure it was safe for families and aquatic life.

He cited concerns over the “potentially harmful propensities” of a chemical called polymethylene polyphenyl isocyanate, which an official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told the Santa Cruz Sentinel was an inert ingredient in CheckMate.

But on Monday, the EPA suddenly reversed course, saying CheckMate didn't contain the ingredient – part of a chemical class known to trigger asthma and respiratory symptoms in sensitive groups – after all.

Spokesman Dale Kemery said trade secrets laws prevented him from disclosing any more information about the pesticide and refused to answer additional questions Thursday.

Meantime, confusion over the spray's ingredients – as well as mounting questions over the legal bounds of pesticide law – has veteran intellectual property lawyers watching for an outcome.

O'Farrell did not immediately issue a decision following Thursday's hearing to extend the temporary injunction.

“If people are saying this is causing health problems, you would think the federal agency has some authority to force the manufacturer to disclose to them what's in the formula,” said Rick Darwin, a San Francisco-based intellectual property lawyer. “But then again, I've never seen a context in which trade secret law bumps up against public safety.”

I'll say one thing of all the topics we have discussed nothing has ever created the 'deafening silence' as Suterra.

Note that even butter, not a fucking word.

Dunc, not a fucking word.

Marge, terror and fell off the planet.

Quim, one sarcastic joke about it being good or bad?

In effect only two people in Bend, are even willing to discuss this fucking issue.

God Damn fascinating indictment.

Then even the PUSSY himself ( as a 3rd party ) suggests, that well they didn't know. Well they know now, and they're still playing ostriche, they don't want to know, they never wanted to know.

Everyone wants it to be over, they want 2004 the best of times in Bend to return, and thus when Resnick of LA, the richest man in Cali, and one of the richest in the world takes over Bend, OR everyone can assume that 'cargo' will trickle down.

Homer is wrong, this is not the DEATH of BEND, this is the beginning. Soon like Richland, or any tri-city near Hanford, we'll see "Death Bowling", "Bio-Burger", why?? Cuz people know that is wealth. Disposable income in Bend will come from poisoning people in California, and vendors will send a direct signal to those with that disposable income that They KNOW, UNDERSTAND, and SUPPORT the New Bend.

Well who does make it? Where is it made? Given that its their crown-jewels, and that they sued people who released its secret formula, you would think that they would only trust themselves at their factory in Bend Oregon to make it.

***

HI,

What evidence do you have that the new factory will be used to manufacture checkmate?

Rami- Show quoted text --- "You are the hero the world has been waiting for!"

Bruce, and Ramiel, Read the following carefully, it is from the BULL this past JULY, note (1) that the new factory will make pheromone(s), that the factor/company Suterra is a spin-off of Bend Research ( owned by Harry Lonsdale ).

Suterra scouting Juniper RidgeLocal biotechnology company wants construction to begin by November

By Peter Sachs / The BulletinJuly 23, 2008

Suterra, the Bend maker of high-tech pesticides, is the latest firm to shop for land at Bend’s 1,500-acre Juniper Ridge development, according to a document obtained by The Bulletin.

The biotechnology company, a spin-off of pharmaceutical firm Bend Research, focuses on pheromone-based....

Our reporter Bruce is nearly complete with his full report on the Juniper Ridge transistion for tire-flipping&rotation ( Les Schwab ) to bio-warfare ( Suterra ).

Here is what bruce has given us to date ( juniper-ridge-info.blogspot )

1.) That Suterra LLC ( note another LLC just like HOLLERN ) of Bend, Oregon is owned by Stewart Resnick of LA, CALIF. Bend loves Calis.

2.) Stewart Resnick owns a holding company in LA, CALIF called "Roll International Corp". In the JR sales agreement all correspondence is sent to the Roll Corp address.

3.) Stewart Resnick is the richest man in California, he is also the rich Jewish man in California, and is recognized by Israel as one of the richest Jewish men in the world, well after Schnitzer of Portland, who owns Schnitzer Steel.

4.) Stewart Resnick a Democrat is the number one contributor to the Democratic Party of Calif, Stewart Resnick is the number contributor to Arnold Schwarznegger the Gov of Calif. Stewart Resnick has owned every Governor in California for the past thirty years.

5.) Stewart Resnick is the Governor appointed Water Bank chief of Calif, and has held this post for over twenty years. This has entitled him to sell all under ground water tables in the State of Calif to companys owned by Resnick ( himself ), today Resnick owns most of the water in Calif at an estimate value of $500M. Water is assumed to be more valuable than oil in 10-20 years, this position means that Resnick will be the richest man in the world.

6.) Gov Schwarznegger via a no-bid contract has promised to purchase $500M worth of Suterra 'CheckMate' from Suterra LLC, of BEND, CA ( owned by Resnick ) over a ten year period, that started two years ago.

7.) Federal MSDS for 'checkmate' clearly show that it is toxic poison and must be handled by professionals with full respiration and appropriate clothing. For the past two years State of Calif has been spraying 'CheckMate' over the Calif Bay Area city's. You can't say that Suterra didn't warn them about the fact that 'CheckMate' is poison.

8.) This year the USDA ( dept ag ) via Bush/Cheney is spending $500k on PR&MARKETING in Calif to convince people that 'CheckMate' is safe, and friendly and green.

9.) Most of the money coming through Calif to purchase Suterra CheckMate from Bend, Oregon comes from Homeland Security via USDA.

10.) The city of Bend, and Suterra LLC, have a letter of intent, available on the city of Bend website made available by our own reporter 'Bruce' http://www.ci.bend.or.us/city_hall/meeting_minutes/docs/Letter_to_Suterra.pdf

The issue is the truth, the issue is a free and fair debate about our city.

The issue is the Source & Bulletin have had nada on this subject.

The issue is that the city has sold Juniper Ridge to Suterra in a secret deal, see juniper-ridge-info.blogspot.com

Regarding biology and axes to grind not one iota of content needed to be created, there are ten's of thousands of references of Suterra's handiwork all over the internet. Spraying on the google campus itself has created a cottage industry of websites dedicated to making Suterra's poisons public.

Many people who work at google commute to Santa Cruz & Monterey, which was especially hard-hit by Suterra poison.

The essential issue with Bend is that over 50% of the voting public voted for Bush/Cheney which funded this spraying operation, while the majority of the Bay Area hates Bush-Cheney. The majority of Bend loves Bush-Cheney. This is the reason for the silence in Bend.

This debate has NOTHING to do with Suterra BEBB, it has only to do with Bush-Cheney's secret projects, its just frosting on the cake that Suterra got a $500M no-bid contract from Gov Schwarznegger courtesy of USDA aka Bush-Cheney & homeland security.

It's just icing on the cake that Schwarzneggers largest campaign contributor "stewart resnick", OWN's Suterra.

These are all public facts that need to be TATTOOED on the ass of the Bend citizenry.

(NewsTarget) On September 9th, 2007 several planes hired by the State of California Food and Agricultural Department (CDFA) flying at an altitude of approximately 500ft sprayed the untested biochemical, CheckMate®OLR-F, on over 30,000 citizens in Monterey and other surrounding cities in California. This occurred without the permission of the citizens. The spraying continued for three nights from approximately 8pm to 5am. About 1,500 pounds of biochemical were dumped on the cities. Many citizens did not even know what was happening when the planes were buzzing overhead.

An 11 month old child nearly died from breathing difficulties. A six year old child developed asthma as a result of the aerial spraying. Over one hundred people signed affidavits stating that they got sick from the spraying. Hundreds of people had symptoms like; shortness of breath, headaches, dizziness, burning lungs, nausea, and muscle aches.

The excuse for aerial spraying is not a deadly disease carrying mosquito, but a moth whose larva may eat some leaves of some plants; called the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). The CDFA considers the moth an invasive species since it is from Australia. Yet, evidence suggests that the moth has been in California for many years, living peacefully. In response to the moth, the CDFA set up relatively harmless sticky traps, which have captured nearly every Light Brown Apple Moth in the Northern California region.

Governor Schwarzenegger is a strong supporter of the declared emergency; the need to spray untested biochemicals on humans to stop the LBAM from destroying crops.

This aerial spraying violates several state, federal and international laws. It violates the right to personal safety given by the California State Constitution, the very document that creates the California government. It violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protects people with chemical sensitivities and other disabilities from discrimination. It violates the Federal constitutional right to personal liberty. It violates the EPA’s laws against spraying pesticides on people. It violates human rights laws that say that human experimentation without consent is unethical and immoral. It violates criminal laws that claim it is a crime to poison children, or anyone else. It violates pollution laws to spray a toxic substance over plants, animals, and waterways. It violates laws against organized crime and it violates the very tenants of our democracy; a system of government designed to represent the people, not to poison the people to represent private agri-business interests.

Recently, in a series of rapid fire events, the CDFA declared a state of emergency relating to the LBAM claiming that the moths are about to destroy a huge portion of the state’s agricultural crops. The claim is that the LBAM will cause hundreds of millions of dollars of crop damage. Due to this supposed “emergency,” the CDFA claims it must immediately spray an untested biochemical to eliminate this threat as soon as possible despite the reported harms. Mind you, these moth’s only travel within a 20-30 yard diameter of their birth place during their entire life.

The state of emergency is a false declaration because the CDFA cannot produce any meaningful evidence that the LBAM can or would destroy crops and the sticky traps are effective at containing the moths. In Hawaii, the LBAM has been a help to the ecosystem by destroying invasive species and there’s no evidence of crop harm for the last 100 years.

The only emergency seems to be that the State of California, under Governor Schwarzenegger’s helm, has an urgent need to spray as many humans; men, women, children, pregnant women, people with allergies, the elderly, and the sick, with chemicals. There is no sensible explanation as to why they want to do this, nor is there any explanation as to why they think that spraying pesticides on people is a good thing to do.

Spraying chemicals, safe or not safe, on humans against their will is illegal. It is a crime! The Nuremberg Code, established after the horrors of World War II, prohibits human experimentation without the consent of the person who is being experimented upon.

The state does not care about the over 200 health complaints, nor the laws they are violating, but rather cares about the commercial agricultural business. Trade partners with the US may not accept shipments of plants or produce that may have the LBAM. The CDFA has given various figures of the estimated crop damage that the LBAM will cause. Their estimates range from 100 million to 2.7 billion dollars. Now, these estimates are not based on any scientific survey but rather on their opinion and fears.

Even if the harmless moth could cause such damage, it is a dangerous precedent to place the health and safety of United States citizens, especially infants and children, secondary to money. So the CDFA and Governor Schwarzenegger has determined that 100 million dollars of possible damage gives them justification to poison children with chemicals. In this case, economic factors have been given priority over liberty and human value.

And the question I have been asking myself is - who is going to protect the children who will be sprayed?

So what chemicals make up Checkmate OLR-F and LBAM-F Products?

This has been the technical question many people have been asking. The specific details of the chemicals seem to be of less importance than the simple fact that these are chemicals. Synthetic chemicals do not have a place on our bodies without our permission. And they do not have a place in our children’s bodies who have a much lower tolerance to environmental toxins!

My understanding is that approximately 15-20% of the main biochemical is made up of a synthetically derived moth pheromone. This pheromone supposedly confuses the moths and disrupts their mating cycles. I am unaware of any scientific evidence to prove that the pheromone is effective at controlling the LBAM population. I supposed the CDFA’s plan is to see how it works after a year or more of spraying. This is essentially biochemical testing. And the problem is that they are doing it on the public on a large scale, against the people’s will. Due to the declaration of an emergency, the CDFA allow themselves to bypass the normal environmental review process meant to examine such questions.

The concern with the Checkmate chemicals is not so much about the pheromone, but rather the pheromone distribution system. The pheromone is encapsulated in a micro-capsule (like a miniature pill) which the CDFA brags is biodegradable. What they do not tell you is that the capsule needs to dry out to biodegrade. In water environments (like your body), the pheromone stays encapsulated. The micro-capsule takes approximately 30 days to degrade. The full degradation occurring within 30 days is unlikely because Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties experience frequent rain and dampness from the Pacific Ocean. Thus, the people in the areas that are sprayed will be inhaling and touching miniature pills. Once in their bodies, the capsule will likely slowly degrade causing moth pheromone to be released directly into people’s bloodstream.

The micro-capsule is made out of what are falsely called “inert” ingredients. Again, the EPA brags that these “inert” ingredients are mostly ionized water. However, they forget to tell you that there are also two known dangerous toxic substances in the inerts - tricaprylyl methyl ammonium chloride (TMAC) and polymethylene polyphenyl isocyanate (PPI).

The breathing problems and asthma-like conditions are known side effects of PPI. So how is the state legally able to spray it on people?

The way they illegally avoid the law and lie to people, so that people will be lulled into a stupor, is by saying that PPI, along with other ingredients, are actually not in the pesticide. Well, this is about 5% true and 95% a lie. Say you are baking a cake; you use flour, sugar, some eggs and other ingredients, and you bake it. One could argue that, in the final cake product, there is no flour but rather a new chemical compound called cake. In the same way, when PPI and other ingredients are processed, they meld and bind together and change their chemical form. They no longer resemble exactly their original substances, just like cake does not look much like the flour it was made of. When you examine the final biochemical, you will see no PPI but rather some new toxic substance.

Since there is no independently verifiable evidence that these new chemical compounds are toxic or not, other than 117 signed affidavits of people who got sick, and since there is a so-called “emergency”, no thorough testing needs to be done. It is a devious way to avoid the law. The end result is that we must “trust” the EPA to say the chemicals are safe. It’s hard to trust the EPA because, for example, with water fluoridation the entire employee’s union at the EPA came out to say that water fluoridation is dangerous and harmful while the official position of the EPA is that water fluoridation is a good thing. It also becomes more difficult to win a court case against the aerial spraying when you cannot get any evidence that the chemicals are dangerous because you are not allowed to independently verify anything that the EPA alleges.

Strangely, the CDFA came out with precautions for this “non-toxic” chemical. Recommendations such as; to close all your windows during the spray, to stay inside, to hose everything off in the morning before you touch it, and to not touch anything that is covered with the chemical residue (anything outside) were encouraged. These warnings are good ideas since the micro-capsule can easily be inhaled, stays stuck on things, or remains in the air. I recently checked the CDFA website looking to quote this document and they had removed all warnings about the chemical, claiming now that it is totally safe. Perhaps this was spurred by the CDFA Secretary of Agriculture A.G. Kawamura’s concern that citizens would waste too much water following the CDFA’s instructions to wash the chemical off of things before touching them. It is eerie how A.G. Kawamura is concerned about saving water and our environment, but is totally oblivious to the fact that hundreds of people have been poisoned due to his aerial spraying efforts.

Another concern is the Checkmate OLR-F and LBAM-F warning label from the manufacturer:

“Keep Out of Reach of Children”

“Caution: Harmful if absorbed through the skin. Causes moderate eye irritation. Avoid contact with skin, eyes, or clothing. Harmful if inhaled. Avoid breathing vapor or spray mist.” The criminals at the CDFA claim we should not worry about this warning label. According to the CDFA’s toxicity theory, since the biochemical is going to be inhaled and touched in smaller doses, this warning is no longer necessary as it refers only to those who handle the chemicals.”

Due to this premise, the CDFA insists that the 117 documented complaints of illnesses are psychosomatic and are not caused by the Checkmate. They continue to spray without thoroughly investigating these health claims. Infants cannot get psychosomatic illnesses because they are too young to make things up like that. The CDFA are hypocrites because when a doctor reports that someone is sick to the CDFA, and if that person had recently ingested certified raw milk, they automatically shut down the milk business even without evidence that the milk caused the illness. (The milk, in this case, is never the source of illness because the cows are healthy.) On one hand, they overly penalize raw milk producers for things that might cause illness and on the other hand they ignore cases which definitely cause illness by their own hands.

Spraying chemicals on people is a crime, safe or not.

This is an outrage and this is sickening.

It used to be easy to turn a blind eye to government corruption because we could avoid it. You can avoid vaccinations by claiming an exemption. You can avoid polluted soaps and shampoos by buying natural ones, and you can avoid pesticide ridden foods by choosing organic. (In case you are wondering, strawberries and other produce sprayed with Checkmate will still be certified organic by the State, so you won’t know you are eating pesticide ridden produce.) But the citizens of Monterey, Santa Cruz, Seaside, Los Lomas and other communities consisting of over 100,000 people who are scheduled to be spray bombed, some beginning today for up to six nights in a row, do not have the choice. Their personal boundaries have been violently violated by the CDFA.

Now, you cannot turn a blind eye anymore to what the government does. We need to acknowledge that these things are wrong, whether we can avoid them or not. When we do not stand up against evil, we affirm it. When we say what is happening is smart, we affirm that the evil doer is good because we do nothing to stop them.

I encourage you, in every way possible, to not sit back here. When you see someone doing wrong, whether it is a relative, a neighbor, or the local government, speak up. We need to stop this juggernaut. It is truly a terrifying experience because I have a pregnant partner and a young child and I have to move away from here to avoid being sprayed, to avoid being force vaccinated with synthetic moth hormone. The last bastion of hope is that the Santa Cruz City Council narrowly voted to sue the criminals doing this. It is unclear whether their lawsuit will be effective.

Checkmate.

The name for the biochemical Checkmate has two meanings. First, to check (stop) mating. Although there is no reliable evidence that it will check mating, for all we know, it could cause the moths to mutate and mate more. The second meaning of checkmate is a position in the game of Chess. This is a position when you have your opponent trapped no matter what move they do. They cannot win so they must resign and lose the game. Ironically, it is not the moths who are in the position of checkmate, but rather the citizens of Monterey, Marina, Pacific Grove, Sand City and Seaside (cities near Carmel and the famous Pebble Beach Golf course). These citizens must literally run, and escape, for the sake of their children from their own homes because a toxic cloud of government corruption is about to rain down upon them. It is these citizens who are in the position of checkmate. The difference here is that losing can mean a chronic disease, illness, and perhaps worse.

What you can do is call your state and federal representatives and encourage them to push through laws that prohibit aerial spraying. Encourage California State Senators and Federal Representatives to engage in a criminal investigation because poisoning people, children, and the elderly is a crime. Just because the people engaged in this work for the government, it doesn’t make them immune to our laws. Support 1hope.org, and the City of Santa Cruz, to fight back.

Tell everyone!

Spread this news. Let’s tell the whole world the truth about civil rights in the good ole’ US of A.

If enough people know, this cause will be greatly advanced. Also, process your feelings about this, the anger, the rage, the terror, and the hatred it brings up. Feel how you want to protect those in the aerial spray path, that inner voice speaking within you saying, “NO! this is wrong, it must stop”.

May the criminals face the real consequences of their crimes and be brought to justice. And may the people of Northern California be protected from untested synthetic chemicals forced upon them.

When Suterra's CEO read the Bulletin article, he went to the City and told them they were way premature with their announcement. Of course the City couldn't stand the thought of the deal not going together after it was in the paper, so they started offering incentives, and after they'd given away the sun, the moon, and the stars Suterra agreed to the deal.

*

And this my friends is a loving BULLSHIT bedtime story for your milk & cookies, ... by our resident PUSSY, ... do you actually believe this shit PUSSY?

YOU know what I know, and that is after LES SCHWAB everyone would get the same deal, and that deal is the same deal that Les Schwab got which was basically over $16M in improvement to their infrastucture and site.

Over a dozen times I have told the PUSSY to post the 'letter of intent' between the city & suterra, and the pussy has refused to post that letter in which time line is clear and its rather the clear that the city is tepid at best, and suterra the agressor just like that which led to the infamous les-schwab sales agreement.

YES isn't that CUTE, BEBB deletes all the REAL INFO on SUTERRA, and some masked bandit called LSMFT posts this new bed-time fable, and BEBB will leave this up, cuz its the new story the BULL wants all to believe.

Like I said about a week ago, the silence was because folks hadn't gotten their story straight, and now it appears they have a new story.

But for the correct time-line, and to see who actually was the aggressor and gave away the store, its all in the letter of intent, and its location was posted on bb2 comments last week.

The PUSSY has always from day-one here only had ONE SINGLE AGENDA, and that is to BASH KURATEK, he never mentions HOLLERN, and at the end of the day always does MEA-CULPAS for city-hall. Why not, he knows all campaign and power comes from HOLLERN, and he knows that if someday he gets his wet twat in the city-hall, he has to work with these people, hell he even agrees with RDC(BEBB) on most right-wing issues over on Dunc's site, BP is a chameleon, ... that said keep the shit flowing BP.

All actions, deal and force came and were initiated by sutterra, the july-25 document is 100% city covering its arse.

*

So there you go the facts that are public, suterra initiated the deal, and stated their intentions on take it or leave it deal July 18, craig cooper senior vp of suterra, then july 25, 2008 eric king, mgr of bend formally responds,

July 23, somehow 'imagine that' the BULL hears of the offer and prints the story,

Now today the BIG PUSSY is telling us that the city initiated the deal,

BEBB has deleted all the above from is site, and replaced it by the bedtime story, and then the PUSSY brings it over here to feed US.

Because everyone in BEND deletes everything on this subject, all the info about the letter-of-intent, from july 18/25, and the original BULL story about suterra on 7/23/2008 can be found at the above site, where people don't selectively delete and create their own reality.

Santa Cruz, CA. (November 6, 2008) Just a few days before the one-year anniversary of the aerial spraying for Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) in Santa Cruz, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) released a report by the Department for Pesticide Regulations (DPR) about the results of environmental monitoring during pesticide applications in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.

While CDFA claims that this study proves the safety of the chemicals used, environmental groups and citizen advocates say that statement is misleading and point out fundamental shortcomings of the report. Rather, they argue, the report reveals another breach of the law by CDFA as it states that considerable drift occurred during aerial spraying in 2007. The study also confirms observations made by affected residents of inconsistencies in the dosage of the pesticides, creating whole clusters of illness. Detailed reactions follow.

1. The study is inadequate in determining toxicity of the chemicals sprayed, as it takes into account only the active ingredient of the pesticides, a synthetic pheromone. The so-called inert ingredients are not being examined, although those ingredients are of great concern. Some inert ingredients have established carcinogenic, mutagenic, and reproductive toxicities, others are toxic to aquatic species.

Says Santa Cruz resident Paulina Borsook “This report persists CDFA’s disingenuous practice of looking at the most benign components of the spray only and then calling the whole product ‘safe’. The agency’s behavior is completely irresponsible. CDFA continues to put families, pets, wildlife and fragile ecosystems at risk, and insults those that already have been hurt.”

Quote: “The Check Mate products also contain several inert ingredients, but these were not monitored.” (p. 2)

2. While deficient in determining toxicity of the spray, the new study conducted by DPR, reveals evidence of further abuses of the law by CDFA. The report states that pesticide drift was measured as far as 3.3 miles outside of the spray zone. This is a clear violation of section 12972 in the California Agriculture Code: “The use of any pesticide by any person shall be in such a manner as to prevent substantial drift to nontarget areas.”

Quote: “Drift of the product was detected at considerable distance from the application boundary, 3.97 ug/ft2 (1.15 percent of the target application rate) at 17,400 feet in one instance.” ( p. 12)

Says Soquel resident Isabelle Jenniches “I live outside the spray zone, but we could feel and smell the spray. My husband and I had red eyes, dry mouths, and accelerated heart rates for days. My neighbor suffered a terrible asthma attack, the first in years. It is a well-known fact that airborne pesticides can drift for miles. This dangerous practice has to stop for good!”

During aerial spray operations last year, the pilots were to leave buffer zones around waterways and along the ocean. The now confirmed pesticide drift rendered these buffer zones meaningless. Storm run-off made things worse: after the spraying a thick yellow foam was observed in the water. Surfers reported the worst red tide in 40 years, which may have been fueled by phosphates and surfactants in the spray.

Says Frank Egger, president of the North Coast River Alliance “When I saw the photographs of thick yellow foam in the ocean after spraying, I knew that our waters had been contaminated. We now have proof of this. This is an outrageous violation of both state and federal laws and further puts endangered species such as steelhead trout and Coho salmon in jeopardy.”

3. The study also finds that pesticide capsules were not evenly distributed within the carrier substance (water), leading to inconsistent deposition rates of the spray. This may explain why some entire families became very ill when neighbors across the street did not. One property received a much larger exposure to chemicals than the other.

Quote: “The tank sample results showed a large amount of variability between samples for the same treatment and even within analysis of a single sample. […]The cause of the variability could be due to several factors. It was noticed that the microcapsules tend to separate out of the mixture quickly and require constant mixing.” (pp. 9 & 10)

The deposition study by the Department of Pesticide Regulations can be found at the CDFA website http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/phpps/PDEP/lbam/pdfs/docs/deposition_study.pdf

Often we forget the little guy, the SMB, in our discussions of the comings and goings of the Internet marketing industry. Sure there are times like this when a report surfaces talking about their issues and concerns but, for the most part, we like to talk about big brands and how they do the Internet marketing thing well or not so well.